2 Peter 3:13

3:11-18 From the doctrine of Christ's second coming, we are exhorted to purity and godliness. This is the effect of real knowledge. Very exact and universal holiness is enjoined, not resting in any low measure or degree. True Christians look for new heavens and a new earth; freed from the vanity to which things present are subject, and the sin they are polluted with. Those only who are clothed with the righteousness of Christ, and sanctified by the Holy Ghost, shall be admitted to dwell in this holy place. He is faithful, who has promised. Those, whose sins are pardoned, and their peace made with God, are the only safe and happy people; therefore follow after peace, and that with all men; follow after holiness as well as peace. Never expect to be found at that day of God in peace, if you are lazy and idle in this your day, in which we must finish the work given us to do. Only the diligent Christian will be the happy Christian in the day of the Lord. Our Lord will suddenly come to us, or shortly call us to him; and shall he find us idle? Learn to make a right use of the patience of our Lord, who as yet delays his coming. Proud, carnal, and corrupt men, seek to wrest some things into a seeming agreement with their wicked doctrines. But this is no reason why St. Paul's epistles, or any other part of the Scriptures, should be laid aside; for men, left to themselves, pervert every gift of God.

Then let us seek to have our minds prepared for receiving things hard to be understood, by putting in practice things which are more easy to be understood. But there must be self-denial and suspicion of ourselves, and submission to the authority of Christ Jesus, before we can heartily receive all the truths of the gospel, therefore we are in great danger of rejecting the truth. And whatever opinions and thoughts of men are not according to the law of God, and warranted by it, the believer disclaims and abhors. Those who are led away by error, fall from their own stedfastness. And that we may avoid being led away, we must seek to grow in all grace, in faith, and virtue, and knowledge. Labour to know Christ more clearly, and more fully; to know him so as to be more like him, and to love him better. This is the knowledge of Christ, which the apostle Paul reached after, and desired to attain; and those who taste this effect of the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, will, upon receiving such grace from him, give thanks and praise him, and join in ascribing glory to him now, in the full assurance of doing the same hereafter, for ever.

2 Peter 3:13 . καινοὺς δὲ οὐρανοὺς … προσδοκῶμεν . Cf. Isaiah 65:17 . ἔσται γὰρ ὁ οὐρανὸς καινὸς καὶ ἡ γῆ καινή . Enoch xci. 16. See note on 2 Peter 3:7 . οὐρανός might appropriately be translated “sky”. ἐν οἷς δικαιοσύνη κατοικεῖ ; “wherein righteousness dwells,” or “has its home”. In the word there is both the sense of permanence and of persuasive influence. Both in the hearts of men, and the new environment, there will be nothing that militates against righteousness. The Parousia is both judgment on the wicked and triumph for the kingdom. Cf. 2 Peter 3:7 .

2 Peter 3:13 . Καινοὺς , new ) A great mystery, new heavens and a new earth . It is something external to God and external to man.[24]— ἐπάγγελμα , promise ) 2 Peter 3:4 .— ἐν οἷς δικαιοσύνη κατοικεῖ , in which dwelleth righteousness ) Therefore they shall not grow old. There will be a complete separation between good and evil, Matthew 3:12 ; Matthew 13:30 . The inhabitants who ought to be righteous , 2 Peter 3:11 , compared with 6 and 7. In the new world, which comprises the heaven and the earth, dwelleth righteousness. The new world is one whole: in it (the whole) dwelleth righteousness. That part, which had been polluted by unrighteousness, shall be freed from pollution. [24] The promise is not merely of some new manifestation of God, or of some change in man, but of something external ; not of that which is subjective , but objective .—T.

2 Peter 3:13 . Nevertheless we, according to his promise, &c. — That is, “Though the present frame of things shall be dissolved by fire, yet we look for another, a more durable and perfect state; new heavens and a new earth — New and everlasting abodes, which the divine mercy will then open to our enraptured view, into which it will conduct us, and in which perfect righteousness, holiness, and felicity, shall dwell for ever;” Revelation 21:1-7 ; Revelation 22:1-5 . Some expositors suppose that these lower heavens and this earth, having been melted down by a general conflagration, shall thereby be refined, and that God will form them into new heavens and a new earth for the habitation of the righteous; a supposition which seems to be favoured by St. Peter, Acts 3:21 , where he speaks of the restitution of all things, which God hath promised by the mouth of all his holy prophets; by St. Paul, Romans 8:21 , where he says, The creation itself shall be delivered from the bondage of destruction; and also by the Lord Jesus himself, whose words ( Revelation 21:5 ) are, Behold, I make all things new. As St. Peter had a revelation from Christ that he would create new heavens and a new earth, he might justly call that his promise; but the patriarchs and believing ancients were not without the expectation of such an inheritance. See Genesis 17:7 ; Daniel 12:2 ; Hebrews 11:10-16 .

Nevertheless we, according to his promise: see Isaiah 65:17 Isaiah 66:22 Revelation 21:1,27 , to which this text seems to refer, speak of a new state of the church here in the world, yet by way of allusion to the renovation of the world, which is ultimately there promised, and the perpetuity of the gospel church till then is thereby assured. Look for new heavens and a new earth; instead of the present world, which is to be consumed by fire, 2 Peter 3:10,12 , or the first heaven and earth, which pass away, Revelation 21:1 . These will be new heavens and a new earth, either as to their substance, or as to their qualities, refined and purified from all defilement, and free from all that vanity to which the creature was made subject by the sin of man, Romans 8:20,21 . Wherein dwelleth; i.e. perpetually abideth, and not only for a time, Romans 8:11 2 Corinthians 6:16 2 Timothy 1:14 . Righteousness; either this may be understood of righteousness in the abstract, that together with the destruction of the world the kingdom of sin shall be destroyed, and God’s elect, the inhabitants of the new world, shall be filled with righteousness, whereas before sin had dwelt in them: or else the abstract may be put for the concrete, and by righteousness may be meant righteous persons, who only shall be the inhabitants of the new world, the wicked being turned into hell, Revelation 21:27 ; and by this way of expressing it may be implied the perfection of the righteousness of such.

13. Nevertheless—"But": in contrast to the destructive effects of the day of God stand its constructive effects. As the flood was the baptism of the earth, eventuating in a renovated earth, partially delivered from "the curse," so the baptism with fire shall purify the earth so as to be the renovated abode of regenerated man, wholly freed from the curse. his promise—(Isa 65:17; 66:22). The "we" is not emphatical as in English Version. new heavens—new atmospheric heavens surrounding the renovated earth. righteousness—dwelleth in that coming world as its essential feature, all pollutions having been removed.

13 . we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth ] The promise of which the Apostle speaks is that of Isaiah 65:17 ; Isaiah 66:22 , where we have the very words, “new heavens and a new earth,” the context there connecting it with the restoration of Israel to their own land and the renewed glory of Jerusalem. The same hope shews itself in the visions of the Apocalypse ( Revelation 21:1 ) as connected with the “new Jerusalem” coming down from God, and appears in a fuller and more expanded form in the Apocryphal Book of Enoch. “The former heaven shall pass away and a new heaven shall shew itself” (chap. xcii. 17). “The earth shall be cleansed from all corruption, from every crime, from all punishment” (c. x. 2–7). wherein dwelleth righteousness ] This again reproduces the thought of Isaiah ( Isaiah 65:25 ) that “they shall not hurt (LXX. “act unrighteously”) nor destroy in all my holy mountain,” and St John’s account of the new Jerusalem that “there shall in no wise enter into it anything that defileth” ( Revelation 21:27 ). It is implied in St Paul’s belief that “the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption” ( Romans 8:21 ). Earth itself, purified and redeemed, is to be the scene of the blessedness of the saved, as it has been, through the long æons of its existence, of sin and wretchedness.

Verse 13. - Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth; rather, but, according to his promise, we look for. The promise is that in Isaiah 65:17 , "Behold, I create new heavens and a new earth" (see also Isaiah 66:22 and Revelation 21:1 ). St. John saw in vision the fulfillment of the prophecy of Isaiah and St. Peter: "The first heaven and the first earth were passed away." It may be that, as the water of the Deluge was the baptism of the ancient world into a new life, so the fire of the great day will be the means of purifying and refining the universe, transforming it into new heavens and a new earth, making all things new. Our Lord's use of the word "regeneration," in Matthew 19:28 , seems to favour this view. In the regeneration of the individual soul the personality remains, the thoughts, desires, affections, are changed; so, it may be, in the regeneration of the world the substance will remain, the fashion ( σχῆμα ) of the old world will pass away ( 1 Corinthians 7:31 ). But it is impossible to pronounce dogmatically whether the new heavens and earth will be a reproduction of the old in a far more glorious form, through the agency of the refining fire, or an absolutely new creation, as the words of Isaiah seem to imply. St. John, like St. Peter, speaks of a new earth, and tells us that that new earth will be the dwelling-place of the blessed.