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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
20. τοῦτο πρῶτον γινώσκοντες. The same words recur in 2Pe 3:3.
πᾶσα—οὐ. Hebraistic for οὐδεμία.
προφητεία γραφῆς prophecy of Scripture—included, contained in Scripture.
ἰδίας ἐπιλύσεως οὐ γίνεται. Words productive of much dispute. The principal meanings assigned to them have been:
(a) Prophecy is not to be interpreted by private individuals apart from the Church.
(b) It is not to be interpreted by man apart from the Holy Spirit.
(c) Does not come from human ingenuity: is not a successful attempt to solve a difficulty, originated by the prophet himself.
(d) It could not be interpreted by the prophet himself. He did not always know the meaning of the vision he saw. Daniel and Zechariah, for example, ask what it is that is shown to them.
(e) Prophecy is not confined, not subject to, a single interpretation; it is capable of many fulfilments besides the immediate and local one.
Something similar is said in 2Pe 3:16. Unlearned persons wrest the Scriptures to their own destruction. There seems to be in both passages a warning against unauthorized interpretation of prophecy.
The writer goes on here to assign a reason why prophecy is not ἰδίας ἐπιλύσεως. “For it was not at any time conveyed by the will of man.” The prophets themselves could not prophesy when and as they pleased. If that was the case, how little can you expect to interpret their prophecies without God’s help! Note that the aid of Christ Himself was required to “open” the Scriptures to the first disciples (Luk 24:25 etc., 44 etc.). Thus the warning against private and unauthorized exposition of prophecy seems to be most prominent; but there may be also contained in the passage the greater truth that prophecy is capable of several and ever-widening fulfilments.
θελήματι ἀνθρώπου is opposed to ἀπὸ θεοῦ.
Theophilus of Antioch, in a passage quoted on p. xviii, seems to paraphrase this verse, as well as to allude to 2Pe 1:19.
ὑπὸ πνεύματος ἁγίου φερόμενοι, cf. θεοφόρητος, θεοφορεῖσθαι, the latter verb being often used of prophets by Philo, Justin, etc., quoted by Mayor. It may be right to emphasize the absence of the article from πνεῦμα, “borne by a holy spirit” of wisdom. Cf. Wis 7:22.
2. So far we have had but an introduction to the writer’s chief topic. Throughout he has had in view the warning of his readers against a particular danger: so he has begun by insisting on their keeping firm in the right way. Now he begins to enlarge on his special subject, leading up to it by the mention of prophecy. The value of prophecy, he says, cannot be exaggerated, though its use must be guarded. But there was false prophecy in Israel, and false teaching is now coming in upon the new Israel.
It is here also that the writer begins most clearly and continuously to use another source, the Epistle of Jude. There have been, in his first chapter, resemblances to its language (see Introd.), but from the point we have reached the parallels are much closer.
ψευδοπροφῆται. The primary force of ψευδο- in ψευδοπροφῆται and ψευδοδιδάσκαλοι is not that the prophets and teachers utter what is false, but that they are sham prophets and sham teachers—they do not deserve the name. But of course the reason why they are so called is because they teach what is false.
ἐν τῷ λαῷ, Israel, λαόν Jud 1:5.
παρεισάξουσιν in an evil sense: παρεισφέρω was used in a good sense in 2Pe 1:5. Cf. παρεισάκτους ψευδαδέλφους in Gal 2:4.
αἱρέσεις ἀπωλείας. αἵρεσις is used in a neutral sense in Acts, of the Sadducees, of the Pharisees, and by an adversary, Tertullus, of the Christians: in Act 24:14 Paul speaks of τὴν ὁδὸν ἣν λέγουσιν αἵρεσιν, again not necessarily in an abusive sense. In his Epistles the thing is deprecated. 1Co 11:18-19 couples αἱρέσεις with σχίσματα: Gal 5:20 with διχοστασίαι, so that it seems equivalent to “schism.” In Tit 3:10 αἱρετικὸν ἄνδρα … παραιτοῦ the context shows that what is meant is an opinionated and disputatious person. By the time of Ignatius (110) it is clearly used in our sense of heresy. He warns the Trallians “to abstain from the noxious herbs of heresy,” and says to the Ephesians “Among you no heresy dwells.” Here the general meaning is put out of doubt by the addition of the word ἀπωλείας, so that it is possible to hold that the writer could conceive of αἱρέσεις that were not “destructive.”
ἀπώλεια is a favourite word with our writer, occurring again in this verse and in 2Pe 2:3, 2Pe 3:7; 2Pe 3:16.
καὶ, emphatic. Even denying.
τὸν ἀγοράσαντα αὐτοὺς δεσπότην ἀρνούμενοι, Jud 1:4. The parallel with Jude forbids us to think that the incident of Peter’s denial of his Master is referred to.
ἀγοράσαντα. 1Co 6:20 ἠγοράσθητε γὰρ τιμῆς. Rev 5:9 addressed to the Lamb ἐσφάγης καὶ ἠγόρασας τῷ θεῷ ἐν τῷ αἵματί σου.
In Act 20:28 this purchasing is ascribed to the Father, to whom the title δεσπότης is applied wherever else it is used in N.T. (e.g. Luk 2:29, Act 4:24, Rev 6:10). Accordingly, some understand δεσπότης of the Father here, and some of the Son. The phrase in Jude is τὸν μόνον δεσπότην καὶ κύριον ἡμῶν Ἰ. Χ., which at first sight seems plainly to mean One Person, and that the Son: but there again it is pointed out that κύριος is one of the words which in such a sentence can stand without an article, so that two Persons might be meant. I incline to interpret both passages as referring to the Son.
Note that δεσπότης and ἀγοράζειν give point to the word δοῦλος so often used by the Apostles of themselves.