2 Peter 3:16

2 Peter 3:16. as also in all (his) epistles, speaking in them of these things; a statement from which we are not entitled to infer that the Pauline Epistles already formed a collection which could be spoken of as one whole.

in which are some things hard to be understood. The ‘in which' refers, according to the best reading, not to the ‘things' of which Paul spake, but to the Epistles themselves. The adjective ‘hard to be understood' occurs only here. Some suppose the reference to be particularly to Paul's doctrine of the Second Coming, as given in such passages of his Epistles as 1Co 15:12-58, 1 Thessalonians 4:13, etc.; others to his doctrines of justification and Christian freedom, which engaged so much of his teaching, and were peculiarly open to perversion. It is also suggested that the more mystical sections of his doctrine, those found, e.g., in Ephesians 2:5, etc., Colossians 2:12, may be specially in view, as these were capable of being turned to the advantage both of the party of immoral licence, and of errorists like Hymenaeus and Philetus, who taught that the resurrection was past already (Hofmann).

which the ignorant and unstable wrest. These three words ‘ignorant,' ‘unstable,' ‘wrest,' are peculiar to this passage. The first, which is rendered ‘unlearned' by the A. V. and ‘ignorant' by the R. V., has not quite the same sense as the ‘unlearned' applied to Peter and John in Acts 4:13. Here it means unskilled, or uninformed in Christian truth. With the second compare chap. 2 Peter 2:14. The third means primarily to twist, e.g. with a windlass, or with a screw, or upon an instrument of torture like the rack, or to wrench, as e.g. in the case of a dislocated limb. Thence it comes to mean to twist or distort the sense of words.

as they do the other scriptures. Those who wrest particular statements in one section of the Scriptures are next represented as apt to make the same perverted use of Scripture generally. In the N. T. the phrase ‘the Scriptures' is regularly applied to the O. T. writings. The singular may be used of a particular passage or portion of Scripture, as in John 19:37; and is once employed where the words in question cannot be identified with any in the Bible as we have it (James 4:5). But in some fifty occurrences the plural seems never to be used but of the O. T. This is a strong reason for supposing that the O. T. Scriptures are also meant here, and that Paul's Epistles, therefore, are already ranked along with them. On the other hand, it is urged that Peter would scarcely have placed the O. T. in this unqualified manner in the same category with the Epistles of a contemporary of his own, and that it is probably other writings of the New Testament period that are referred to. Even thus it appears that there were already so many writings which were recognised as Christian Scriptures, and spoken of in terms similar to those applied to the ancient and venerated collection of the O. T. Scriptures, and that the Epistles of Paul were reckoned among these. The implicit testimony contained in this statement to the authority of certain writings as Scripture also deserves to be noticed. It is observed that, as Peter closes his Epistles with this testimony, so Malachi brings the O. T. to its end with a charge to ‘remember the law of Moses with the statutes and judgments ;' John concludes the four Gospels with a similar testimony (John 20:31); Paul closes his Epistles with a solemn statement on the profitableness of inspired Scripture (2 Timothy 3:14-17); Jude closes the Catholic Epistles with an injunction to remember the words spoken before by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ (Jude 1:17); while the Apocalypse ends with the promise of blessing to those who keep, and of the opposite to those who take from or add to, the sayings of the book (Wordsworth).

to their own destruction. The words carry us back to the ‘heresies of destruction' mentioned in chap. 2 Peter 2:1, the emphatic ‘own,' however, intimating that in this case the destruction comes upon the men not by the seductions of others, but by their own misuse of Scripture. The passage has been seized on in support of the Roman Catholic doctrine of the obscurity of Scripture, its possible injuriousness to the private student, and the danger of leaving it in the hands of the people without an authoritative interpretation. What Peter is warning against, however, is the perils of a misuse of Scripture. What he states is not that Scripture is unsafe in the hands of the people, but that there are certain things in it which are capable of being perverted by a particular class. And while he gives this caution to the ‘ignorant and unstable,' he speaks of Paul as writing ‘according to the wisdom given unto him,' and earnestly enjoins upon all these Gentile Christians scattered throughout the Asiatic Churches ‘to be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and of the commandments of us the apostles of the Lord and Saviour' (chap. 2 Peter 3:2).