I. The fact of the longsuffering of God. Sentence of condemnation is not speedily executed. The blessings of health and prosperity often accompany the sinner all through his course of rebellion. The patience of God appears inexhaustible.
II. The generous object of God’s longsuffering.
1. God bears with transgressors not because He is ignorant of their actions.
2. Not because He is indifferent to their actions.
3. Not because He wants the power “to avenge Him of His adversaries.”
4. God bears with sinners because His name and His nature is love.
(1) It is the actual design of God by this longsuffering to bring men to salvation.
(2) The tendency of this longsuffering, as well as God’s design, is to salvation.
(3) The actual effect of this longsuffering on the part of God is salvation. But though the longsuffering of God be thus designed to be salvation, yet “the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night.” There is a period to the Divine patience. (G. T. Noel, M. A.)
The forbearance of God, ending in the salvation of men
I. The longsuffering of the Lord.
1. It may be defined as the suffering of opposition, injuries, and insults, for a long time without punishing them.
2. The instances and displays of the longsuffering of God are amply recorded in the Bible.
3. And the world, through all the ages of its being, has presented the same picture. What has been the history of every nation? of every city? of every village? of every family? of every person? A record of Divine patience.
4. Let us suggest a few considerations calculated to put the longsuffering of God in a clear, strong light.
(1) The pointedness of our offences. It is this which gives to sin its evil. It is pointed against God. It is a thrust at His throne.
(2) That entireness which belongs to the sin of man. No counterbalancing conduct. There is no mixture in the conduct of unconverted men towards God. There may be some things well towards man. But towards God all is wrong.
(3) The inexcusableness also of offences against God tends to enhance our views of His longsuffering. Has God evergiven you any reason to treat Him as you have treated Him?
(4) The ingratitude of our offences must also be remembered.
(5) The implacableness of offenders against God renders His longsuffering the more remarkable.
II. In what sense the longsuffering of the Lord is said to be salvation.
1. It is only by a reference to the great purpose of salvation that we can satisfactorily account for the longsuffering of the Lord,
2. Consequently the longsuffering of the Lord is to afford adequate occasion and room for carrying the plan of salvation into execution.
3. It is therefore a standing indication to men of the willingness of God to save.
4. It is then a motive to induce men to be saved. It is part of that goodness which leadeth men to repentance.
5. But salvation is often the blessed result of Divine forbearance. This is its grand issue. The longsuffering of the Lord is salvation in actual effect and eternal consequences. It ends in this.
III. Enforce the injunction to estimate rightly the longsuffering of the Lord. “Account that the longsuffering of the Lord is salvation.” See that you put this interpretation upon Divine forbearance, esteem it as salvation.
1. Do not then make it the food of scepticism. This was the wretched mistake of those ungodly persons of whom the apostle had spoken. “Be not deceived, God is not mocked; what a man soweth that shall he also reap,” whether it be early or late.
2. Neither regard the longsuffering of the Lord as connivance. Do not think that because He does not smite, He therefore smiles.
3. Nor must you account that the longsuffering of the Lord is security. Whilst you are saying peace and safety, sudden destruction may come upon you. Account that the longsuffering of the Lord is salvation. Regard this as the end. Believe that you are allowed and encouraged to seek that end. Let the longsuffering of God be your introduction to His mercy. You may turn this stream of life into poison and death. (Essex Remembrancer.)
God’s longsuffering: an appeal to the conscience
I. Admire the longsuffering of God.
1. Admire the longsuffering of God as to peculiar sins. Look, they make images of wood or stone, and they say “These are God,” and they set up these things in the place of Him that made the heavens and the earth. How does He bear it--He that sitteth in the heavens, in whose hand our breath is, and whose are all our ways? Others, even in this country, blaspheme God. And oh, how is it that God bears it when they dare imprecate His curse upon their bodies and their souls? Besides, there are those who use fair speech, and yet blaspheme most intolerably. How is it that the Thrice-holy One bears with them? And then there are others who wallow in unmentionable impurity and uncleanness. The moon sees a world of foulness, fornication, and adultery: and yet, O God, thou bearest it! And then, when I turn my thoughts another way, to the oppression of the poor, to the grinding down of those who, with the hardest labour, can scarcely earn bread enough to keep body and soul together, how does the just God permit it?
2. Especially notice that this long-suffering of God is seen in peculiar persons. In certain persons sins are greater than the same sins would be in other people. They have been favoured with a tender conscience, and with good instruction, so that when they sin they sin with a vengeance.
3. It is wonderful that God should have such longsuffering when we look at the peculiar circumstances under which some men sin.
(1) Some men sin against God wilfully, when they have no temptation to it, and can plead no necessity.
(2) Some manifest the longsuffering of God very wonderfully in the length of time in which they have been spared to sin. Remember that it would be easy on God’s part to be rid of you. One wish, and the sinner will never provoke Him any more, nor refuse His mercy again. He will be gone out of the land of hope.
II. Take the right account of the longsuffering of God. “Account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation.” What does this mean?
1. Does it mean, first, as to the saving of the many? The Lord Jesus Christ is, as I believe, to have the pre-eminence. Christ came not to destroy the world, but that the world through Him might be saved; and so, as every year rolls by, let us account it salvation, and spend and be spent in the hope that by any means we may save some.
2. The next meaning of this is to any of you who are unconverted. I want you to account that the longsuffering of God in sparing you means to you salvation. Why are you here to-night? Surely it is salvation. I met years ago a soldier who had ridden in the charge of Balaclava. He was one of the few that came back when the saddles were emptied right and left of him. I could not help getting into a corner, and saying to him, “Dear sir, do you not think that God has some design of love to you in sparing you when so many fell? Have you given your heart to Him?” I felt that I had a right to say that. Perhaps I speak to some of you who were picked off a wreck years ago. Why was that? I hope it was that you might be saved. You have had a fever lately, and have hardly been out before. Why were you saved from that fever when others were cut down? Surely it must mean salvation. When Master Bunyan was a lad, he was so foolhardy that, when an adder rose against him, he took it in his hand, and plucked the sting out of its mouth, but he was not harmed. It was his turn to stand sentinel at the siege of Nottingham, and as he was going forth, another man offered to take his place. This man was shot, and Master Bunyan thus escaped. We should have had no “Pilgrim’s Progress” if it had not been for that. Did not God preserve him on purpose that he might be saved?
3. This text seems to me to have a bearing upon the people of God. “Account that the longsuffering of God is salvation.” I must turn the text to give you really what lies in it. It is salvation to a man to be put side by side with Christ. If you have to bear the jests of the ungodly--if God spares them, and permits them to persecute you, be glad of it, and reckon it as salvation, for now you are made partaker of Christ’s sufferings. What more salvation do you desire? Remember, too, that when the ungodly persecute the righteous, they give them the mark of salvation, for of old it was so. He that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the spirit. Once more: reckon the longsuffering of God, when it permits the ungodly to slander and injure you, as salvation, because it tends to your salvation by driving you nearer to the Lord. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The longsuffering of God
God bears long with sinful men, to give them further opportunities of securing salvation.
1. It is remarkable, however, that the long-suffering of God has, in many instances, just the contrary effect. “Because sentence is not speedily executed against an evil work, therefore the hearts of the sons of men are fully set within them to do evil.” When the prophet Isaiah denounced the judgments of God, he was met with the reply, “The vision that he seeth is afar off; “and when his prophecy was not immediately fulfilled they said, “The days are prolonged, and every vision faileth.” Myriads have been ruined for ever by abusing the longsuffering of God. They never intended to brave His wrath, but they saw so little cause for immediate alarm that they ventured a little further, until they had gone too far to retrace their steps. Have you ever noticed that our Saviour seldom warns us against a deliberate rejection of the gospel offers? He knew that such guilt would be rare. “How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?” And how often does the Saviour call upon us “to watch,” and warn us that His coming will be “as a thief in the night”!
2. And it is astonishing with what ingenuity men can encourage this presumptive confidence in the long-suffering of God. Listen, for instance, to their remarks at funerals. If it be an aged person that has deceased, they say, Ah! he had lived to a good old age, and it was a matter of course that he should die. If it be an infant that is cut off, they say, There are so many diseases to which little ones are subject. In another case the remark concerning the deceased will be, He has been very imprudent, and brought his death upon himself. Or, in yet another case, This person has long been declining, and had the seeds of death within him; but I have no such symptoms of decay or dissolution. All this is to keep off the idea of dying, and to encourage the hope that the longsuffering of God will wait yet longer.
3. Indeed it is an easy matter to encourage a vain trust in the longsuffering God if we are so disposed. How many things there are to help on presumption if we are inclined to indulge it! Time flies silently. Sickness and death do their work very silently. Men do not fall like the leaves in a cold climate, where a single night’s frost can strip every tree of its verdure; but the process is rather like the falling of the foliage in a tropical region, where leaf drops after leaf, and is succeeded by another springing forth in its place, so that the eye scarce notices the change. See how noiselessly even our religious opportunities slip away from us! Many have spent the greatest part of their earthly Sabbaths, and scarce reflected that they are gone. God does not, in general, deal with us by startling methods; He uses these as rarely as the thunders and earthquakes of the natural world, but speaks to us for the most part in gentle and persuasive tones.
4. It may be asked, perhaps, why did God adopt such a method of dealing with us? If He had struck the offender dead by a visible interposition; if He had called from heaven, as He did to Saul of Tarsus, to persuade us to repentance, we should have been awed into obedience. But it would have made but little difference if God had dealt with us by startling methods. One who will slumber may be startled out of it a few times, but by and by he would sleep as the sailor does amid the rocking billows on the mast-head. Now, let me ask, what better mode God could have adopted of saving souls than that which for years He has been using without success? Do you say that the reason and understanding must be convinced before one can become a Christian? And has not God done enough to satisfy your reason? Do you say that the heart must be moved by love and mercy, and not by terrors? Have there not been mercy and love in God’s dealings with you? If the compassion of our God was not infinite, these protracted sins against His longsuffering would a great while ago have drawn down His wrath.
5. And it is because that righteous anger may finally be incurred that I would urge you to sin no more against the longsuffering of God. These days are passing off with so little to excite your fears; these seasons, when you have little concern for your souls, are most of all to be dreaded. They are sealing your destiny, as the whirlpool draws in the boat without a single ripple for some time to betray its influence, until at last destruction roars around, too late for retreat. These fair days of seeming peace which God is giving you, are the working days for laying up the eternal harvest. (W. H. Lewis, D. D.)
The longsuffering of God to be accounted salvation
Our own existence here is a proof of the longsuffering of God. By our apostasy we have forfeited all title to His favour and protection. That sentence, however, is not yet executed.
I. The statement of the text is to be considered generally as a law, or rule, or principle, of the Divine government. The longsuffering of God is salvation, not directly in itself, but indirectly in subordination to a fixed plan and purpose of salvation. It is not the longsuffering of God that saves a single sinner, but the love of God in Christ; and His longsuffering contributes to the sinner’s salvation in no other way than by placing within his reach, and pressing upon his acceptance, the gospel overtures of mercy. God has but one method of saving sinners. It is not His longsuffering that saves them, but that grace for the exercise of which, on their behalf, His longsuffering affords scope and space. On this point be not deceived. Consider not God as acting merely from the impulse, so to speak, of personal feelings of compassion, when He spares. Regard Him as sustaining a public, an official character, in which He has high authority to vindicate, and good government to maintain. True, He is full of tenderest feelings of pity to you personally; but, then, as a judge may not gratify his personal feelings as a man, without reference to his state and duty as a judge upholding law and order, so God, in His compassionate regard to you, lays not aside His regard to the claims of His own sovereignty, and the sanctity of His own administration. The very giving up of His Son to be sin for you is the proof also of His concern for the honour and the majesty of that justice which was to be preserved untarnished at such a cost. It is in the character of a just God and a Saviour that He is longsuffering; not in relenting pity, reversing His sentence of judgment. This great salvation He now offers to you. Be not so infatuated as to think you may dispense with it.
II. This law or principle of the Divine government, that the longsuffering of God is to be accounted the salvation of man, may be applied to the case of temporal judgments, and may explain the Lord’s method of dealing with us in regard to those evils to which, even in this life, as sinners we are exposed.
1. God, in sending temporal judgments, often gives previous warning, and interposes delay, that by timely precautions they may be averted; and in this sense His longsuffering is to be accounted salvation. Do your part to render harsher measures needless, by taking warning in time.
2. There is another way in which the longsuffering of God is manifested in the sending of temporal judgments. He gives us time, not perhaps to avert them altogether, but yet so to prepare for their coming, that, when they do come, they shall come as fatherly chastisements, not as judgments in fact at all, but as mercies. And, in this sense--a far higher and more important sense than is implied in the removal of any temporal calamity--the longsuffering of God is to be accounted salvation.
III. But the most important view for us to take of the maxim of our text is in its application to that judgment of eternal wrath in the life to come, to which we stand exposed. Here it is especially that the longsuffering of our Lord is to be accounted salvation. In this view of it, our text suggests the true explanation of that most perplexing of allenigmas--the present state of sinners on the earth seeming to be tolerated by a holy and righteous God. It is a state, we now see, in which God is longsuffering that man may be saved. Be it remembered, however, it is only a respite, and a respite which does not by any means or of necessity imply an ultimate reprieve. You are spared for a little, but you are spared for a particular purpose; and if that purpose be not attained, there is no other resource--the sentence must take effect. (R. S. Candlish, D. D.)
2Pe_3:15-16
Our beloved brother Paul … in all his epistles.
St. Paul and his writings
This passage proves that, at the time Peter wrote, some epistles of Paul existed, and intimates that they were written according to a kind of wisdom which he had supernaturally received. It proves, also, that they were considered of much authority. This passage declares, also, that, from some cause, either in the writer or the subject, there were some things in these epistles hard to be understood, and likely to be perverted. It is my present design to give you, in the first place, the history and character of St. Paul, and then to consider the causes of that obscurity in his writings of which Peter complains.
I. Those portions of his life which tend most to illustrate his character are his conduct before his conversion, and the consequences of that remarkable event. In the history of Paul we have two different men to describe, the persecutor and the apostle. Nothing can be imagined more complete than the change of views in this apostle, yet he pre serves through the whole of his life what may be called the original stamina of his character. There is nothing which impeaches his integrity, or which ought to render us suspicious of his moral character. He was only actuated by a species of mistaken zeal, which has been common enough in every age. But God had marked out this young man for the most eminent apostle of that faith which he was now intent upon exterminating. If we suppose Paul’s character such as I have represented it to be, there wanted nothing but to show to this young man, by the irresistible evidence of his senses, that this very Jesus, whom he regarded as a crucified, detestable malefactor, was really alive in power to turn the whole current of his conduct, sentiments, and character. This mercy God granted him. In summing up the traits of Paul’s character, you will observe how singularly he was qualified for that office to which he was especially destined, the apostleship of the Gentiles throughout the Roman Empire. He was the only one of the apostles who appears to have had what may be called a liberal education, or, at least, who had any tincture of the literature and philosophy of the Greeks. The mission which was given him demanded not only a strength of genius like his, but an ardour which no discouragement should quench. I will close this division of my subject with two reflections.
1. In the first place, notwithstanding the extreme ardour of this apostle’s imagination, nothing which he has left us discovers any thing of fanatical delusion.
2. How important must that cause be which such a man as Paul could maintain with such amazing exertions, such unwearied zeal, through a longlife of such discouragements, privations, persecutions and indignities, even to the hour of his martyrdom! He saw the happiness of the world suspended on the reception of Christianity. He found that the dearest interests of the souls of men were entrusted to him.
II. I proceed to state, and, if possible, to illustrate, the sources of the obscurity which particularly attends the apostolical parts of the new testament.
1. The first source of obscurity is, that they are private letters, addressed to particular societies, or individuals, upon particular occasions.
2. Another cause of the obscurity of Paul’s epistles is, the peculiar genius of the man. His imagination was easily inflamed with the subject on which he was writing. The motions of his mind were exceedingly rapid.
3. The education and peculiar circumstances of Paul contribute, also, to the obscurity of his epistles. Paul was a man whose head was filled with the Jewish learning of his age; and he, no doubt, writes often like one whose early notions were formed in the school of Gamaliel. Hence he uses many words in a signification which is now extremely difficult to settle. The word” justification “is a remarkable instance of this. It is doubtful, in some instances, whether he means by it a benefit relating only to this life, or extending to our eternal condition. The term” law “is another of similar ambiguity; and it is only by careful attention that we can determine, in particular passages, whether the apostle means by it the whole Jewish dispensation or the ceremonial part of it, or that moral law which is equally obligatory on every rational creature.
4. A fourth source of obscurities in the epistles is to be found in a maxim of interpretation which has too much prevailed without reason: “that we must expect to find in the present circumstances of Christianity a meaning for, or something answering to, every appellation and expression which occurs in Scripture; or, in other words, the applying to the personal condition of Christians at this day, those titles, phrases, propositions, and arguments which belong solely to the situation of Christianity at its first institution.” (J. S. Buckminster.)
The authority of Church guides
I. And that which first entitles the governors of the Church to a superiority over their subjects is that special ordination and commission which they have received from Christ to instruct the world in all necessary truths, and that charge which He hath laid upon others to obey them.
II. The reasonableness of this submission will appear from those promises of assistance which Christ hath made to them. And those are illumination, direction, and power. Illumination in things obscure; direction in things difficult; power to encounter and overcome all opposition.
III. The reasonableness of this submission will appear from their study and learning in Divine matters, and from the far less knowledge and ordinary capacity in others.
IV. The necessity of this submission appears as it is the only means to restore peace and unityto the Church; happiness and tranquillity to the state. (Miles Barne, D. D.)
In which are some things hard to be understood.--
Why Scripture is hard to be understood
Themysteries of salvation are hard but to our understanding; the difficulty is not in their own nature but in our capacity. As some rural inhabitant being admitted into a royal palace admires the building, and is transported with the rareness and magnificence of it; and much of it he understands: when he comes into the hall he knows that that is a place for feeding; when into the gallery, he knows that to be a place for walking; when into the bed-chamber, he knows that to be a place for sleeping; but into some rooms he isbrought, no whit inferior to the former for state and pleasure, the use whereof he knows not; will he now censure the architect for making of such unnecessary and superfluous places? or not rather lay the blame, where it is, upon his own ignorance? The Scripture is a goodly edifice, the Almighty King’s palace; whereof Paul was one of the master builders. When we read his epistles we are surveying the rooms and receptacles; some whereof we easily apprehend, as 1Ti_1:15, Rom_8:1, Php_4:8, 1Th_5:17; but searching further, we light upon some curious rooms, bearing as much art and majesty in them as the rest, but more obscure and mystical, and veiled with the curtain of awful secrecy; such are certain doctrines of St Paul; we are not forbidden to view them, and review them, to study and meditate on them; but if we cannot perfectly understand them, far be it from us to tax St. Paul of obscurity; no, let us impute the fault to our own simplicity. (Thos. Adams.)
Biblical difficulties
I. As acknowledged by the inspired.
1. To those who reject the Bible on account of its difficulties. The Bible does not profess to be a book easily understood. Its difficulties are--
(1) Consistent with its character. It is a revelation of the Infinite directed to the finite.
(2) Consistent with its intention. The Bible is an educational book. The school book which the student has mastered ceases to be educational.
2. To those who arrogate a thorough comprehension of the Bible.
II. As perverted by the ungodly.
1. The perverters are here described. “Which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other Scriptures, unto their own destruction.”
2. The perversion is here indicated. “‘They wrest’--pervert. The word here used occurs nowhere else in the New Testament. It is derived from a word meaning a windlass, winch, instrument of torture (
óôñåâëḉ
), and means to roll or wind on a windlass; then to wrench or turn away as by the force of a windlass; and then to wrest or pervert. It implies a turning out of the way by the application of force. Here the meaning is, that they apply those portions of the Bible to a purpose for which they were never intended.”
3. Their destiny is here stated. “Their own destruction.” What is spiritual destruction? The destruction of all the blessings that can make existence worth having--life, peace, hope, etc. Such is the perversion of those difficulties, but what is the proper use of them?
(1) They should superinduce humility. Before their majesty the intellect should fall prostrate.
(2) They should stimulate intellectual inquiry. They challenge thought--their oceans ask you to navigate them, their hills to climb their summit, their mines to dig and be made rich.
(3) They should point to a future life. (D. Thomas, D. D.)
The mysterious doctrines of Christianity
I. We must observe, that in a Divine revelation mysterious doctrines could not have been avoided. No man hath seen God at any time- clouds and darkness are round about Him--His judgments are unsearchable; and His ways past finding out.
II. That from the limitation of our faculties our information must, of necessity, have its limits. In sciences merely human, one discovery does little else than produce the desire of more. Our utmost attainments are still unsatisfactory and incomplete. Were the mysteries which at present perplex us fully explained, others would be brought within our view. How far soever we might be permitted to advance, we must at last reach the point where our faculties would fail us. HI. These mysteries in religion are such only with reference to our understandings. To us that is difficult which we cannot perform; that ismysterious which we cannot comprehend. But the difficulty and the mystery depend less upon the objects themselves than upon the narrowness of our capacities. In our future state of existence we shall probably be allowed to acquire much higher degrees of information than we at present possess.
IV. It will tend still further to reconcile us to the mysterious doctrines of our faith, if we seriously reflect that there abe mysteries equally unsearchable in almost everything around us. Not a subject can be named which the human mind can be said fully to understand. Lessons:
1. The difficulty and obscurity inseparable from some of the articles of our faith is an obvious reason that, whenever they are discussed at all, they should be discussed with caution and diffidence.
2. The doctrines, however, which we cannot comprehend, it is still incumbent upon us to believe. We pursue, not what we know, but what we think, will promote our own good. And the same principle prevails in the religion that we profess.
3. Finally, while we admit that the Christian revelation has its mysteries, like every ether work of its Divine Author, and like that Author Himself, we maintain that it teaches plainly all that is necessary for us to know or to practise. (W. Sparrow, D. D.)
The difficulties of Scripture
Thewritings of St. Paul, occupying as they do a large portion of the New Testament, treat much of the sublimer and more difficult articles of Christianity. There is a great deal made known to us by the Epistles, which could only imperfectly, if at all, be derived from the Gospels. It was to be expected that the New Testament would be a progressive book; the communications of intelligence growing with the fuller opening out of the dispensation. And it is a natural consequence on the greater abstruseness of the topics handled, that the apostle’s writings should present greater difficulties to the Biblical student. With this admission of difficulty we must join the likelihood of misconception. If a man have error to maintain he will turn for support to passages of Scripture of which, the real sense being doubtful, a plausible may be advanced on the side of his falsehood. But you will observe that, whilst St. Peter confesses both the difficulty and the attendant danger, he gives not the slightest intimation that the Epistles of St. Paul were unsuited to general perusal. Had St. Peter intended to infer that, because obscurity and abuse existed, there ought to be prohibition, it is altogether unaccountable that he did not lay down the inference. A fairer opportunity could never be presented for the announcement of such a rule as the Roman Catholic advocates. After all, it is not so much the difficulty which makes the danger as the temper in which the Bible is perused. We desire to bring before you what we count important considerations, suggested by the announcement that there are difficulties in Scripture. There “are some things hard to be understood.” We lay great stress on the fact that it is an inspired writer who gives this decision. The Bible attests the difficulties of the Bible. If we knew the Bible to be difficult only as finding it difficult, we might be inclined to suppose it luminous to others though obscure to ourselves. We should not so thoroughly understand that the difficulties which one man meets with in the study of Scripture are not simply produced by his intellectual inferiority to another--no, nor by his moral or spiritual inferiority--but are, in a great degree, inherent in the subject examined, so that no equipment of learning and prayer will altogether secure their removal. We take into our hands the Bible, and receive it as a communication of God’s will, made, in past ages, to His creatures. And we know that, occupying, as all men do, the same level of helplessness and destitution, so that the adventitious circumstances of rank and education bring with them no differences in moral position, it cannot be the design of the Almighty that superior talent, or superior learning, should be essential to the obtaining due acquaintance with revelation. There can be no fairer expectation than that the Bible will be intelligible to every capacity, and that it will not, either in matter or manner, adapt itself to one class in preference to another. And when, with all this antecedent idea that revelation will condescend to the very meanest understanding, we find, as it were on the covers of a book, the description that there are in it “things hard to be understood,” we may, at first, feel something of surprise that difficulty should occur when we had looked for simplicity. And undoubtedly, however fair the expectation just mentioned, the Bible is, in some senses, a harder book for the uneducated man than for the educated. So far as human instrumentality is concerned, the great mass of a population must be indebted to a few learned men for any acquaintance whatsoever with the Scriptures. Never let learning be of small account in reference to religion. But after all, when St. Peter speaks of “things hard to be understood,” he cannot be considered as referring to obscurities which human learning will dissipate. He certainly mentions the “unlearned” as wresting these difficulties, implying that the want of one kind of learning produced the perversion. But, of course, he intends by “unlearned” those who were not fully taught of the Spirit, andnot those who were deficient in the acquirements of the academy. The “un learned,” in short, are also “the unstable”: it is not the want of earthly scholarship which makes the difficulties, it is the want of moral steadfastness which occasions the wresting. We have nothing, therefore, to do in commenting on the words of St. Peterwith difficulties which may be caused by a defective, and removed by a liberal, education. The difficulties must be difficulties of subject. It were a waste of time to adduce instances of the difficulties.
I. We would show you that it was to be expected that the Bible would contain “some things hard to be understood.” We should like to be told what stamp of inspiration there would be upon a Bible containing nothing “hard to be understood.” Is it not almost a self-evident proposition that a revelation without difficulty could not be a revelation of divinity? You ask a Bible which shall, in every part, be simple and intelligible. But could such a Bible discourse to us of God, that Being who must remain necessarily and for ever a mystery to the very highest of created intelligences? Could such a Bible treat of purposes which extend themselves over unlimited ages? Could such a Bible put forward any account of spiritual operations, seeing that, whilst confined by the trammels of matter, the soul cannot fathom herself, but withdraws herself, as it were, and shrinks from her own scrutiny? Could such a Bible, in short, tell us anything of our condition whether by nature or grace? But it is not the manner in which they are handled which makes them “hard to be understood.” The subject itself gives the difficulty. If you will not have the difficulty you cannot have the subject. You must have a revelation which shall not only tell you that such and such things are, but which shall also explain to you how they are: their mode, their constitution, their essence. And if this were the character of revelation it would undoubtedly be so constructed as never to overtask reason; but it would just as clearly be kept within this boundary only by being stripped of all on which we mainly need a revelation. A revelation in which there shall be nothing “hard to be understood” must limit itself by the powers of reason, and therefore exclude those very topics on which, reason being insufficient, revelation is required. There is no want of simplicity of language when God is described to us. But who understands this? Can language make this intelligible? We might argue in like manner with regard to every Scriptural difficulty. We account for the existence of these difficulties mainly by the fact that we are men, and, because men, finite in our capacities. Let there be only the same amount of revelation, and the angel may know more than the man because gifted with a keener and more vigorous understanding. And it is evident, therefore, that few things could have less warranty than the supposition that revelation might have been so enlarged that the knowledge of man would have reached to the measure of the knowledge of angels. We again say that there is no deficiency of revelation, and that the difficulties which occur in the perusal of Scripture result from the majesty of the introduced subjects and the weakness of the faculties turned on their study. And we are well persuaded that, however disposed men may be to make the difficulties an objection to the Bible, the absence of those difficulties would have been eagerly seized on as a proof of imposture. There would have been fairness in the objection. It can only be viewed as a necessary consequence on the grandeur of the subjects which form the matter of revelation that, with every endeavour at simplicity of style and aptitude of illustration, the document contains statements which overmatch all but the faith of mankind. And, therefore, we are bold to say that we glory in the difficulties of Scripture. We can feel the quick pulse of an eager wish to scale the mountain or fathom the abyss. But at the same time we know, and we feel, that a Bible without difficulties were a firmament without stars. We know, and we feel, that the vast business of our redemption, arranged in the councils of the far-back eternity, and acted out amid the wondering and throbbings of the universe, could not have been that stupendous transaction which gave God glory by giving sinners safety, if the inspired account brought its dimensions within the compass of a human arithmetic, or defined its issues by the lines of a human demarcation. And, therefore, do we also know and feel that it is a witness to the inspiration of the Bible that, when this Bible would furnish us with notices of the unseen world hereafter to be traversed, or when it would turn thought on the Omnipotent, or when it would open up the scheme of the restoration of the fallen; then, with much that is beautifully simple, there are mingled dark intimations, and pregnant hints, and undeveloped statements before which the weak and the masterful must alike do the homage of a reverent and uncalculating submission. We do not indeed say--for the saying would carry absurdity on its forefront--that we believe a document inspired because in part incomprehensible. But if a document profess to be inspired, and if it treat of subjects which we can prove beforehand to be above and beyond the stretchings of our intellect, then we do say that the finding nothing in such a document to baffle the understanding would be a proof the most conclusive that what alleges itself divine deserves rejection as forgery.
II. The advantages which follow, and the dispositions which should be encouraged by, the pact which has passed under review. We see at once from the statement of St. Peter that effects, to all appearance disastrous, are produced by the difficulties of Scripture. The “unlearned and unstable” wrest these difficulties to “their own destruction,” and, therefore, by what process of reasoning can they be proved advantageous? We have shown you that the absence of difficulties would go far towards proving the Scriptures uninspired; and we need not remark that there must be a use for difficulties if essential to the complete witness for the truth of Christianity. But there are other advantages which must on no account be overlooked. We only wish it premised, that though the difficulties of Scripture--as, for example, those parts which involve pre-destination-are wrested by many “to their own destruction,” the “unlearned and unstable” would have equally perished had no difficulties whatsoever existed. They would have stumbled on the plain ground as well as on the rough: there being no more certain truth in theology than that the cause of stumbling is the internal feebleness and not the external impediment. A man may perish ostensibly through abuse of the doctrine of election. But would he not have perished had he found no such doctrine to wrest? Ay, that he would; as fatally and as finally. It is the love of sin, the determination to live in sin, which destroys him. This being premised, we may enlarge on the advantages resulting from the fact that Scripture contains “some things hard to be understood.”
1. And first, if there were nothing in Scripture which overpowered our reason, who sees not that intellectual pride would be fostered by its study? You can make no way with the disclosures of Holy Writ until prepared to receive, on the authority of God, a vast deal which, of yourself, you cannot prove, and still more which you cannot explain. A Bible without difficulties would be a censer full of incense to man’s reason. And if the fallen require to be kept humble, if we can advance in spiritual attainment only in proportion as we feel our insignificance, would not this conversion of the Bible into the very nurse and encourager of intellectual pride, abstract its best worth from revelation; and who, therefore, will deny that we are advantaged by the fact that there are in Scripture “things hard to be understood”?
2. We remark again, that though controversy has its evils, it has also its uses. It is not the stagnant water which is generally the purest. We hold that heresies have been of vast service to the Church, in that they have caused truth to be more thoroughly scanned, and all its bearings and boundaries explored with a most painstaking industry. It is astonishing how apt men are to rest in general and ill-defined notions. If never called to defend the truth the Church would comparatively lose sight of what truth is.
3. When I read the Bible and meet with passages which, after the most patient exercises of thought and research, remain dark and impenetrable, then, in the most especial degree, I feel myself immortal. The finding a thing “hard to be understood” ministers to my consciousness that I am no perishable creature destined to a finite existence, but a child of eternity, appointed to survive the dissolutions of matter, and to enter on another and an untried being. If the Bible be God’s revelation of Himself to mankind, it is a most fair expectation that, at one time or another, the whole of this revelation will be clear and accessible. We can never think that God would tell man things for the understanding of which he is to be always incapacitated. Such are certain of the advantages which we propose to investigate.
III. It yet remains that we briefly state, and call upon you to cultivate, the dispositions which should be brought to the study of a bible thus “hard to be understood.” We would have it therefore remembered, that the docility and submissiveness of a child alone befit the student of the Bible; and that, if we would not have the whole volume darkened, its simplest truths eluding the grasp of our understanding, or gaining at least no hold on our affections, we must lay aside the feelings which we carry into the domains of science and philosophy, not arming ourselves with a chivalrous resolve to conquer, but with one which it is a thousand-fold harder either to form or execute, to yield. The Holy Spirit alone can make us feel the things which are easy to be understood, and prevent our wresting those which are hard. Never, then, should the Bible be opened except with prayer for the teachings of the Spirit. You will read without profit as long as you read without prayer. (H. Melvill, B. D.)
Hard things
1. We believe the hard things were left in the Bible for a lofty purpose. God wished us to think and reason. God had a great purpose to fulfil in the training of the race. Hence both in nature and in the Bible He allows perplexing questions. He can only discipline man’s thinking by allowing him to be subject to perplexity. We believe, then, that God purposely left certain difficulties in the Bible to create diversity, to foster the thinking power, and to lead to the exercise of that charity that never faileth. Instead of codification and finality, there is always something to Cause fresh thought, to interest by its newer suggestions--something to quicken mind and lead the soul to listen to the whispers of theHoly Spirit.
2. We have to recognise that danger arises from the presence of the “hard things” in the Book. Peter saw that, and said that the “unlearned and unstable” would “wrest them to their own destruction.” Such, by a twist of an obscure text, would bolster up unbelief or find countenance for a pet idea. They will find even excuse for sin by twisting some word. The ill-tempered will quote, “Be ye angry,” and leave out the words “sin not.” The covetous man will defend greed by “Be diligent in business,” and leave out “serving the Lord.” The neglecter of worship will quote “The Sabbath was made for man,” and go off to indulge in that which will not help him to keep holy the Sabbath day.
3. Some things in life as well as in the Book are “hard to understand.” (F. Hastings.)
Obscure passages in the Bible
“What would you think of a very hungry man, who had not eaten a morsel of food for the last twenty-four hours, and was asked by a charitable man to come in and sit down at a richly covered table, on which were large dishes of choice meat, and also covered ones, the contents of which the hungry man did not know, instead of satisfying his exhausted body with the former, he raises one cover after another and insists on finding out what these unknown dishes are composed of? In spite of all the advice of the charitable man to partake first of the more substantial dishes, he dwells with obstinate inquiry on nicer compounds, until overcome with exhaustion he drops down. What do you think of such a man? “He is a fool.” (Dr. Leiber.)
They that are un-learned and unstable wrest--
Wresting Scripture
I. The men whose evil handling of the scripture i am going to point out are described generally in our text as “unlearned and unstable.” Those meant by “unlearned” are men who, whatever be their human knowledge, have either never “learned of the Father,” or who are at best, “unskilful in the Word of righteousness” (Heb_5:13); and, he adds, “unstable men”--men who, if in some degree enlightened, yet are notestablished in the faith; but are like “children driven to and fro and tossed about with every wind of doctrine” (Eph_4:14).
II. Now let us see what are the various ways in which this offence against God’s book may be committed.
1. One of the most awful ways of wresting Holy Scripture is where men try to draw out of its pages a justification of their sins. “David, they say, was once guilty of adultery--Jacob, of deceit--and Peter of a lying oath; and yet they were good men. And this, they think, is either a warrant or excuse for the sins in which they live themselves. Oh! when men read a portion of God’s Word which describes some evil deed, and are tempted from His silence to suppose He disregarded it, let them look at other portions. Let them think of His most holy laws; let them mark His terrible threatenings” against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men” (Rom_1:18).
2. Another grievous way of wresting Scripture is where men try to draw out of its doctrines a justification of their doing nothing for their souls.
3. A third way in which Holy Scripture may be “wrested,” and often, I fear, is so, is as follows. Men adopt a certain set of doctrines as their own, these doctrines may seem to be the language of certain texts of Scripture, but are evidently contrary to others. What, then, do they do when they are pressed with all those passages which make against them? Why, they try to give these passages another meaning. They find out some ingenious method of explaining them away, or of adapting them to their own peculiar views.
4. I will speak of one instance more of the “wresting” of the Scriptures. It is where men quote Scripture, as Satan did (Mat_4:6), by halves, so as to make it seem to speak the thing they wish. How awful is that threatening which is addressed in the Book of Revelation to all such triflers with the Bible! (Rev_22:18-19).
III. How, then, are we to escape the guilt and danger of wresting holy scripture?
1. The chief means, most assuredly, of avoiding such a guilt as this, is to pray for the Spirit as our Guide and Interpreter in reading His own Book.
2. Let me recommend to you, again, some frames of mind in which we must ever pray and strive to open the Lord’s Book.
(1) One is a sense of our own ignorance, with a desire, a most unfeigned desire, to be led and taught of Holy Scripture.
(2) Again, it is a great point to study Holy Scripture in simplicity of mind without any prejudice or bias.
(3) He who would shun the sin of wresting Holy Scripture must study it with diligence. He must take all the pains he can to ascertain its real meaning.
(4) So as not to wrest it to your own destruction--study it as a sinner searching for a Saviour. (A. Roberts, M. A.)
