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2Pe_3:15-16. καὶ τὴν τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν μακροθυμίαν ] See 2Pe_3:9 : “the long-suffering of our Lord, which consists in this, that He still keeps back the last judgment.” It is open to question whether ὁ κύριος ἡμῶν means God (de Wette, Dietlein, Fronmüller) or Christ (Wiesinger, Schott, Steinfass); what goes before favours the former (2Pe_3:14; 2Pe_3:12; 2Pe_3:10; 2Pe_3:9; 2Pe_3:8), the N. T. usage the latter; in both cases the sense is substantially the same.
σωτηρίαν ἡγεῖσθε ] antithesis to: βραδυτῆτα ἡγοῦνται , 2Pe_3:9: “the μακροθυμία of the Lord account for salvation,” i.e. as something which has your salvation as its aim, that is, by your making such use of the time of grace, that the fruit of it is the σωτηρία .
καθὼς καὶ ὁ ἀγαπητὸς ἡμῶν ἀδελφὸς Παῦλος κ . τ . λ .] The reference here to Paul is evidently meant to emphasize the exhortation given; it is, however, more particularly occasioned by the circumstance, that many persons had been guilty of wresting the apostle’s words, and against this the apostle wishes to warn his readers.
ὁ ἀγαπητὸς κ . τ . λ .] designates Paul not only as a friend, or a fellow-Christian, but as one with whom Peter feels himself most intimately connected in official relationship. Hofmann, on the other hand, presses the plural ἡμῶν , and thinks that by it the apostle, with a view to his Gentile readers, would unite the Jewish-Christians with himself, so as to show that the apostle of the Gentiles was a beloved brother to them as well as to him. The adjunct: κατὰ τὴν δοθεῖσαν αὐτῷ σοφίαν , acknowledges the wisdom which has been granted to him, of which also the utterances which the apostle especially has in his eye are the outcome.
ἔγραψεν ὑμῖν ] Which epistle or epistles are meant? According to Oecumenius, Lorinus, Grotius, etc., as also Dietlein and Besser: it is the Epistle to the Romans, on account of Rom_9:22 ( ἤνεγκεν ἐν πολλῇ μακροθυμίᾳ ) and Rom_2:4; according to Jachmann: the Epistle to the Corinthians (chiefly on account of 1Co_1:7-9), in consideration of the words: κατὰ … σοφίαν ; according to Estius, Bengel, Hornejus, Gerhard, etc.: the Epistle to the Hebrews, on account of Heb_9:26 ff., Heb_10:25; Heb_10:37. These different opinions assume that καθώς applies only to the last thought expressed in this verse. But there is no reason for any such limitation, since this exhortation is joined in the closest manner possible to that which precedes it in 2Pe_3:14. Wiesinger rightly rejects the supposition that καθὼς ἔγραψε refers still farther back, namely, to the whole section relating to the Parousia (de Wette, with whom Brückner agrees, and Schott).
Since the document to which the author alludes is, by ἔγραψεν ὑμῖν , indicated as one addressed to the same circle of readers as Second Peter, the reference here cannot be to the above-named epistles, nor yet to the Epistle to the Thessalonians (de Wette), but only to the Epistle to the Ephesians (Wiesinger, Schott, Hofmann: to this Steinfass adds the First Epistle to Timothy and the Epistle to the Colossians; Fronmüller, the last-named epistle and that to the Romans). In support of this may be urged the character of this epistle as a circular letter, and the echoes of it to be found in First Peter. It must also be observed, that although the precise thought expressed in the beginning of this verse is not to be found in that epistle, yet the epistle itself is certainly rich in ethical exhortations with reference to the Christian’s hope of salvation.[104] It is plainly entirely arbitrary to assume, with Pott and Morus, that the apostle here refers to an epistle which we do not now possess.
[104] Schott must be considered mistaken in appealing to this, that “it is precisely the Epistle to the Ephesians, Eph_2:11 to Eph_3:12, which contains the most exact development of the idea expressed here in Eph_2:9 and Eph_2:15, that the divine direction of history, with a view to the completion of salvation, has given the peculiar significance to the present time, to lead into the church the heathen world, which will be the subject of the future completion of salvation;” of all this absolutely nothing is here said.