2 Peter 1:10

2 Peter 1:10. Wherefore, brethren, be the more diligent to make your calling and election sure. The ‘wherefore the rather' of the A. V. suggests that the course now to be recommended is one to be preferred to some other course dealt with in the context. This is a legitimate interpretation, the Greek word meaning either ‘rather' or ‘more,' and being used (e.g. 1 Corinthians 5:2) in order to put a contrast of opposition. It is adopted, too, by not a few interpreters. Some construe the idea thus instead of trying to reach ‘knowledge ‘apart from the practice of Christian grace, rather be diligent, etc. (Dietlein). Others put it so instead of forgetting the purification of your old sins, rather be diligent, etc. (Hofmann). Most, however, take the term in the sense of ‘more,' connect the sentence immediately with what has been stated in 2 Peter 1:8-9, and regard it as taking up anew the exhortation of 2 Peter 1:5, and urging it for these additional reasons with greater force. The meaning then is = the case being as it has been explained in 2 Peter 1:8-9, let these grave considerations of what is to be gained by the one course and what is to be lost by the other, make you all the more diligent, etc. This is the one instance of the use of the address ‘brethren' in the Epistles of Peter. In 1 Peter 2:11; 1 Peter 4:12, and in 2 Peter 3:1; 2 Peter 3:8; 2 Peter 3:14; 2 Peter 3:17, we get ‘beloved.' But what is meant by making the calling and election sure? Many interpreters give the theological sense to both the nouns. So the ‘calling' as the act of grace, which takes effect in time, is distinguished from the ‘election' as the eternal act or counsel of the Divine Mind. Or the former is defined as that by which we are called in time to the kingdom of grace, and the latter as that by which we are chosen in eternity for the kingdom of glory. Thus the sentence is understood to be an exhortation to make that sure on our side which God has made sure on His (Besser); or, to ‘confirm the inference as drawn especially by ourselves from the appearance to the reality... from a good life to a gracious condition' (Lillie); or, to make it clear that we ‘have not been called in vain, on the contrary that we have been elected' (Calvin). But the fact that the ‘election' is named after the ‘calling,' and the awkwardness of speaking of the immutable decree of God as capable of being made sure by us, indicate that what is in view here is not the eternal election, but the historical, that is to say, the actual separation of the readers from their old life, and their introduction into the kingdom of Christ. So it is taken by many of the best expositors, including Grotius, Huther, Hofmann, Schott, Mason, Lumby. Those acts of God's grace which called them through the preaching of His Son's Gospel, and took them out of the world of heathenism, were to be made ‘sure' (the adjective is the same as in 2 Peter 1:19; Hebrews 3:6; Hebrews 3:14), or secure, by following them up by diligent attention to all the virtues into which they had ushered the readers.

for, doing these things, ye shall never stumble. The verb which the A. V. renders ‘fall' is the same which it renders ‘offend' in James 2:10; James 3:2, and ‘stumble' in Romans 11:11. It is true, therefore, that it indicates a ‘step short of falling' (Plumptre). It is so represented in Paul's question, ‘Have they stumbled that they should fall (Romans 11:11); and lames (2 Peter 3:2) speaks of a stumbling or offending which is not hopeless. Here, however, it manifestly refers to the final issue of a forfeiture of salvation (Hofmann, Huther, etc.). By the ‘these things' we may understand again, as in 2 Peter 1:8, the graces dealt with in the original exhortation. Not a few, however, take the phrase to refer simply to the duty last mentioned, viz. the making the calling and election sure. The plural form is then explained as due to the fact that the writer regards this ‘making sure' as a ‘many-sided act' (Dietlein), as ‘not a single act, but multiform' (Mason).