When Jesus speaks about the imminent destruction of the Jerusalem Temple and about the end of time, He undoubtedly has in mind not a distant future but a near and even immediate one: the Temple was destroyed by the Romans after the anti-Roman uprising raised by the Zealots...
When Jesus speaks about the imminent destruction of the Jerusalem Temple and about the end of time, He undoubtedly has in mind not a distant future but a near and even immediate one: the Temple was destroyed by the Romans after the anti-Roman uprising raised by the Zealots in A.D. 70, only a few decades after the conversation reported by the evangelist.
Jesus mentions "pains" (the corresponding Greek word literally means "birth pangs" or the pain experienced in childbirth), pointing to famine, epidemics, natural disasters, and wars as their source and root (such is the meaning of the corresponding Greek word, which literally means "beginning," "cause," "source"). The "pains" mentioned by the Savior are clearly connected with the birth of something new: in this case the Kingdom, which, as He repeatedly said, must sprout in the world like a seed thrown into the ground.
By "pains" here He clearly means what in Jewish tradition is usually called "messianic woes": persecutions and cataclysms that fall upon the people of God just before the coming of the Messiah, marking the imminent arrival of the messianic age and the establishment of the messianic Kingdom. As one can see, Jesus is speaking precisely of these woes: to famine, epidemics, earthquakes, and wars there are added here persecutions of His disciples. All that is listed takes place against the background of the appearance of many false messiahs, who spring up like mushrooms after rain, leading after themselves the gullible, whom they then abandon to their fate.
There really were many such false messiahs in those days. All of them called for uprising and war, and all such uprisings ended in punitive expeditions; moreover, the leaders often managed to slip away, while punishment fell on the heads of those who did not want to flee or did not have time to do so. Thus it turns out that history, according to the Savior's words, ends with the end of the Second Temple, built by the repatriates who had once returned to Judea from Babylon. Everything further is no longer the former history proceeding on its usual course, but something new, taking place according to different, new laws.
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1:1 To them that have obtained - Not by their own works, but by the free grace of God. Like precious faith with us - The apostles. The faith of those who have not seen, beingequally precious with that of those who saw our Lord in the flesh. Through the righteousness - Both active and passive.Of our God and Saviour - It is this alone by which the justice of God is satisfied, and for the sake of which he gives this precious faith.
1:2 Through the divine, experimental knowledge of God and of Christ.
1:3 As his divine power has given us all things - There is a wonderful cheerfulness in this exordium, which begins with the exhortation itself. That pertain to life and godliness - To the present, natural life, and to the continuance and increase of spiritual life. Through that divine knowledge of him - Of Christ.Who hath called us by - His own glorious power, to eternal glory, as the end; by Christian virtue or fortitude, as the means.
1:4 Through which - Glory and fortitude. He hath given us exceeding great, and inconceivably precious promises - Both the promises and the things promised, which follow in their due season, that, sustained and encouraged by the promises, we may obtain all that he has promised. That, having escaped the manifold corruption which is in the world - From that fruitful fountain, evil desire. Ye may become partakers of the divine nature - Being renewed in the image of God, and having communion with them, so as to dwell in God and God in you.
1:5 For this very reason - Because God hath given you so great blessings. Giving all diligence - It is a very uncommon word which we render giving. It literally signifies, bringing in by the by, or over and above: implying, that good works the work; yet not unless we are diligent. Our diligence is to follow the gift of God, and is followed by an increase of all his gifts. Add to - And in all the other gifts of God. Superadd the latter, without losing the former. The Greek word properly means lead up, as in dance, one of these after the other, in a beautiful order. Your faith, that "evidence of things not seen," termed before "the knowledge of God and of Christ," the root of all Christian graces. Courage - Whereby ye may conquer all enemies and difficulties, and execute whatever faith dictates. In this most beautiful connexion, each preceding grace leads to the following; each following, tempers and perfects the preceding. They are set down in the order of nature, rather than the order of time. For though every grace bears a relation to every other, yet here they are so nicely ranged, that those which have the closest dependence on each other are placed together. And to your courage knowledge - Wisdom, teaching how to exercise it on all occasions.
1:6 And to your knowledge temperance; and to your temperance patience - Bear and forbear; sustain and abstain; deny yourself and take up your cross daily. The more knowledge you have, the more renounce your own will; indulge yourself the less. "Knowledge puffeth up," and the great boasters of knowledge (the Gnostics) were those that "turned the grace of God into wantonness." But see that your knowledge be attended with temperance. Christian temperance implies the voluntary abstaining from all pleasure which does not lead to God. It extends to all things inward and outward: the due government of every thought, as well as affection. "It is using the world," so to use all outward, and so to restrain all inward things, that they may become a means of what is spiritual; a scaling ladder to ascend to what is above. Intemperance is to abuse the world. He that uses anything below, looking no higher, and getting no farther, is intemperate. He that uses the creature only so as to attain to more of the Creator, is alone temperate, and walks as Christ himself walked. And to patience godliness - Its proper support: a continual sense of God's presence andprovidence, and a filial fear of, and confidence in, him; otherwise your patience may be pride, surliness, stoicism; but not Christianity.
1:7 And to godliness brotherly kindness - No sullenness, sternness, moroseness: "sour godliness," so called, is of the devil. Of Christian godliness it may always be said, "Mild, sweet, serene, and tender is her mood, Nor grave with sternness, nor with lightness free: Against example resolutely good, Fervent in zeal, and warm in charity."And to brotherly kindness love - The pure and perfect love of God and of all mankind. The apostle here makes an advance upon the preceding article, brotherly kindness, which seems only to relate to the love of Christians toward one another.
1:8 For these being really in you - Added to your faith.And abounding - Increasing more and more, otherwise we fall short. Make you neither slothful nor unfruitful - Do not suffer you to be faint in your mind, or without fruit in your lives.If there is less faithfulness, less care and watchfulness, since we were pardoned, than there was before, and less diligence, less outward obedience, than when we were seeking remission of sin, we are both slothful and unfruitful in the knowledge of Christ, that is, in the faith, which then cannot work by love.
1:9 But he that wanteth these - That does not add them to his faith. Is blind - The eyes of his understanding are again closed. He cannot see God, or his pardoning love. He has lost the evidence of things not seen. Not able to see afar off - Literally, purblind. He has lost sight of the preciouspromises: perfect love and heaven are equally out of his sight.Nay, he cannot now see what himself once enjoyed. Having, as it were, forgot the purification from his former sins - Scarce knowing what he himself then felt, when his sins were forgiven.
1:10 Wherefore - Considering the miserable state of these apostates. Brethren - St. Peter nowhere uses this appellation in either of his epistles, but in this important exhortation.Be the more diligent - By courage, knowledge, temperance, etc To make your calling and election firm - God hath called you by his word and his Spirit; he hath elected you, separated you from the world, through sanctification of the Spirit. O cast not away these inestimable benefits! If ye are thus diligent to make your election firm, ye shall never finally fall.