Jude and 2 Peter: Apostolic?

Are the epistles of Jude and 2 Peter apostolic documents, or are they later additions which scholars term "pseudepigrapha"?  That is, did Jude, the brother of James, and Peter, the chief Apostle, write them as the epistles declare, or are they fakes contrived by unknown scribes many years later?

While this question is not ordinarily troublesome to fundamentalists who accept without question the canon of the New Testament, it is fre­quently asked by the liberal (so-called) scholars, and even some conser­vatives.  I once corresponded with a dear old fundamentalist (and by definition, a conservative) Christian in England who stoutly main­tained that Jude and 2 Peter were not genuine apostolic writings and should be ignored by Christians.  Our correspondence set me to think­ing a great deal about this problem.

My conclusion is, yes, they are authentic writings of the apostolic church, whether by the apostles themselves, or by someone designated by them.  I realize the question of authorship is a complex one and not entirely capable of simple an­swers.  However, it is enough to know that the apostolic church, that is, the church from Pentecost, A.D. 30 to the fall of Jerusalem, A.D.70, was the source of the New Testament docu­ments, for many of these people were eyewitnesses to the miracles of Jesus and heard him teach.

I am not going into all the arguments that liberal scholarship uses to debunk the apostolic authority of some of the New Testament.  For one reason, I don't believe their arguments are much more than guesswork, based as they are on very scrappy and unreliable traditional sources, documentary analysis, a less than precise disci­pline called "higher criti­cism," and a strong bias to discredit the Bible.  Suffice it to say their evidence consists of two kinds:  external and internal.

External evidence is that found in other writings, such as that of the Ante-Nicene Fathers, or legal documents of the Roman Empire, or histo­ries written by contem­poraries.  Documentary analysis is also used to establish dates of composition and reliability of the extant manuscripts.  Higher criticism is primarily an analysis of the literary form and content and therefore is to be classified as "internal" evidence.  It is undoubt­edly the least precise of all the methods used by scholars, and is highly subjective in nature.  I shall not honor it with a discussion of its tech­niques, pro or con.

Internal evidence consists of (a) allusions to historical events that can be dated and examined by reference to external documents, and (b) the subject matter itself.  I shall restrict my analysis here almost en­tirely to "internal" evidence.  A character­istic of liberal scholarship is to disregard internal evidence whenever they feel that it is in conflict with some theory they have already developed.  For example, if the au­thor of 2 Peter claims to have been an eyewitness of the transfiguration of Christ, and the scholar has already concluded the Peter did not au­thor the epistle, then that bit of internal evidence is ignored or de­clared "spurious."  I find that, on the whole, modern Biblical criticism is not honest, but, contrary to the claims of its adherents, quite preju­diced against the Bible.

One of their oft used principles comes to mind:  it is assumed by the liberal school that prophecy cannot ever have foretold the future.  Therefore, if an actual historical event is prophesied in the Bible, it is sure evidence that the document was written after that event.  For ex­ample, Jesus prophesied that Jerusalem and the temple would be com­pletely destroyed.  Since that did indeed happen in A.D. 70, then the gospels wherein this prophecy was recorded were written after A.D. 70, perhaps a long time after.  The effect of this kind of thinking is to to­tally discredit the apostolic authority for the New Testament.  If the apostles didn't write it (or dictate it to scribes), then we are free to believe its doctrine or not as we choose.

As I said, normally this is not a problem with the fundamentalist Christian.  Even the old gentleman with whom I corresponded accepted the majority of the New Testament as inspired, apostolic literature.

But there is a kind of evidence that I have discovered that effec­tively refutes the liberal attitude, especially to one who wants to believe in the New Testament.  Of course, if one does not wish to believe, he will contrive more arguments against the Bible than the honest Christian can ever answer.  I am not particularly worried about that sort; but it does seem that many otherwise sincere believers have been gradually influenced by the liberal school of thinking to become skeptical of the authority of certain texts of the received canon.  I find evidence for this in a great many contemporary Christian books.

My kind of argument for the validity of the New Testament consists of discover­ing a harmony of ideas and language that permeates the various texts.  Some of these ideas are so subtle that it does not seem likely they could have been counter­feited.  In fact, it is exactly the same "proof" that the liberals themselves use:  if two or three pieces of evi­dence seem to converge to a single conclusion, the  contention is that probability will establish the proof.  That is, the probability of these inde­pendent bits of evidence pointing to a single conclusion being due to blind chance is too small to be considered.

Let me give an illustration that will perhaps be a little easier to un­derstand.  Say two men are gambling with dice.  One man throws a seven 15 times in a row.  The second man accuses him of cheating.  He is probably correct, as anyone will con­clude.  Why?  Though we know it is theoretically possible for consecutive falls of a pair of dice to show a seven any number of times, the chance of them doing so 15 times in a row is far less than the chance that the player is a cheat.  We know this by common experience.  (Mathematics computes the chance, using fair dice, to be about two times in a trillion.  The frequency of cheats is far greater.)

So if we can find some sort of internal evidence that would be diffi­cult to manufacture by a forger, we can conclude, based on the same reasoning, that it is far more likely that the document is genuine than otherwise.

Now let us look at the epistle of Jude.

THE EPISTLE OF JUDE:

The very first thing that the Bible student discovers is that a large part of Jude is repeated almost word for word in the second epistle of Peter.  Duplication of text is also true of several of the other books of the New Testament, and even of some in the Old Testament.  For exam­ple, almost the whole of the gospel of Mark is con­tained in that of Matthew or Luke.

Is this a point for or against apostolicity?

Liberal scholars maintain it is a point against.  I fail to follow their reasoning.  It is entirely possible that both books are recording a third source of material; in the  case of Jude and 2 Peter, it would be the words and teachings of Jesus not found elsewhere.  It does not seem credible to me that the four gospels contain all that Jesus ever said.  In fact, the gospel of John says that Jesus did so many things and said so much that it was impossible to write it all down (John 20:30, 21:25).  So it seems quite likely that both Jude and Peter made use of some of Jesus' teaching that both heard.  At any rate, duplication of text is of itself insufficient to discredit either epistle.

But the main reason that liberal scholarship discredits Jude is a sup­posed refer­ence to the book of Enoch, an apocryphal work, so they say, that falsely claims to have been written by Enoch.  For centuries, the existence of this book was hypo­thetical, for there was not a copy avail­able to study.  Then some manuscripts were found in Ethiopia in the late 18th century.  Although the Coptic Church of Ethiopia considered it a canonical work, until very recently it was thought that Enoch had been written many years after the time of the apostles.  If that were so, and it could be shown that Jude quoted from it, that would be proof that Jude's epistle was not written by an apostle.  This accusation also has the side effect of casting doubts on the judgment of the author, for he accepted as divinely inspired what has been sub­sequently shown to be false.

Another questionable allusion of Jude is thought to be to  another apocryphal work, The Assumption of Moses.

What are these two quotations or allusions?  One of them is found in verses 14-15.  Here, Jude refers to a prophecy by Enoch, "the seventh from Adam," of the final judgment when the Lord returns to earth with his angels.

Recently, a fragment of the book of Enoch was found in the Dead Sea Scrolls containing this very text!  The archaeologists, using methods of dating based on textual analysis and the shapes of the letters of the al­phabet, have dated this manu­script to approximately 200 B.C.⁵  Thus, Jude was quoting from a document al­ready in existence in his day.  This, of course, refutes the conclusion of liberal scholarship that Jude must be a fake, dating from the 2nd or 3rd century of our time.⁶

We are still faced with the problem, however, that Enoch was never included in the canon of Old Testament books.  Therefore, Jude was citing a non-authoritative text.  This alone, so the modern scholar seems to be saying, is enough to discredit the entire epistle of Jude.  (It was also an objection for some of the ancient Christian scholars, though Jude eventually was accepted as canonical with less doubt as to its au­thenticity than some of the other New Testament books such as 2 Peter.)

Let us grant that Jude did in fact quote from Enoch.  There are sev­eral possibili­ties not advanced by liberal scholarship.  The quotation may be a genuine fragment of prophecy handed down by generations of Jewish scribes.  This seems to be the case for a great portion of the Old Testament, anyway.  This fragment would have been accepted as genuine Scripture by the apostles.  (There is evidence that Paul also referred to the book of Enoch.)  Someone could have taken this frag­ment to­gether with perhaps other traditional stories, prophecies, and even legends and fa­bles, and constructed the book of Enoch.

Here is what The International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia has to say about the problem:

Granting such quotation, that fact does not warrant us to affirm that he in­dorsed the book.  Paul cites from three Greek poets: from Aratus (Acts 17:28), from Menander (1 Cor. 15:33), . . . and from Epimenides (Tit. 1:12).  Does anyone imagine that Paul indorses all that these poets wrote?  To the quotation from Epimenides [The Cretians are alway liars, evil beasts, slow bellies] the apostle adds, "This testimony is true" (Tit. 1:13), but no one imagines he means to say the whole poem is true.  So Jude cites a pas­sage from a non-canonical book, not because he accepts the whole book as true, but this particular prediction he receives as from God.  Whence the writer of Enoch derived it is unknown.  It may have been cherished and transmitted from generation to generation, or in some other way faithfully preserved, but at any rate Jude accepted it as authentic.⁷

The place in which Jude is supposed to have quoted from The As­sumption of Moses is in verse 9.  Michael the archangel had an argu­ment with Satan over the disposition of the body of Moses.  Yet Michael could not directly accuse Satan of unseemly behavior but limited his re­sponse to "The Lord rebuke thee."

I do not believe this is a quotation from any apocryphal book; or, if it is, that it is the only source of the idea expressed.  I believe the true source of Jude's quotation is the Old Testament book of Zechariah.  For in the third chapter we read that Satan was resisting the angel of the Lord who said, "The Lord rebuke thee, O Satan. . . ." (Zec. 3:2).

But what about the argument over the body of Moses?  That isn't in Zechariah, is it?  And isn't that a mere superstition, one of the "Jewish fables and old wives tales" Paul told us to avoid?  Let me finish my discussion, then you judge for your­self.

To begin with, I cannot imagine Satan and Michael arguing over the corpse of a man, no matter who it was.  Nor do I believe the apostles thought this was an im­portant issue.  Their concepts and spirituality were much too elevated for that type of superstition.  It would run counter to the whole thrust of the New Testament which teaches that the present flesh is unprofitable and will be discarded when we enter the kingdom of God.  Why, then, would a corpse be so important?

Perhaps I can give you a plausible explanation for Jude's words, but to do so I must discuss the background of Zecariah's prophecy.

In 586 B.C., the Babylonians invaded Judah, destroyed the temple, razed the city of Jerusalem, killed a large portion of the population, and took into captivity the choicest of the young men and women.  (Included in the list of exiles were Daniel, Shadrach, Meshech, and Abednigo.)  Many years later, Babylon fell into the hands of the Medio-Persian em­pire under Cyrus the Great.  Cyrus promptly freed the Jews to return to their own land and rebuild the temple and the city of Jerusalem.  Several small groups of exiles took advantage of this opportunity.  Alas, there was an even larger number who were quite satisfied with Babylon and who stayed behind.  As late as the 15th century, there were still Jews living near the ru­ins of Babylon!

However, those who did choose to return began to rebuild the coun­try.  Among the returning exiles were the prophets Haggai and Zechariah.  One of the first things that needed to be done, and which took some prodding by Haggai and Zechariah, was the rebuilding of the temple.  About 518 B.C., under the leadership of Zerubbabel, the foun­dation of the temple was laid.

Immediately, the tribes of Gentiles who lived near Jerusalem began to object to the rebuilding of the city and the temple.  They went so far as to write to the king of Persia to stop the Jews, reminding the Per­sians how the Jews were known to be trouble makers.  This ploy worked temporarily, as the Persian government issued a decree forbidding any more construction by the Jews.

It is in this interim that Zechariah had a vision of the temple.  This vision forms the substance of at least chapters 3 and 4.  As I under­stand it, Zechariah was given a vision of the completed temple, even though only the foundation had been laid.⁸  But the part of the vision that is so pertinent to our discussion of Jude was the see­ing of the high priest Joshua ministering in the Holy of Holies before the Lord.  Standing on his left side was the angel of the Lord.  On his right side stood Satan "to resist him."

Thus, Zechariah saw the source of the Gentile effort to prevent the construction of the temple.  It was Satan himself.  He was resisting the worship of the Lord by the Jews in the temple.

The angel said to Satan, "The Lord rebuke thee, O Satan, even the Lord that hath chosen Jerusalem rebuke thee: is not this a brand plucked out of the fire?"

Zechariah goes on to relate how that the high priest was clothed with filthy gar­ments.  The angel cleansed the high priest and outfitted him with a clean change of raiment.  Zechariah, evidently not satisfied with just a change of raiment, suggested that the high priest also receive a new mitre upon his head.

Let us examine the phrase, "is not this a brand plucked out of fire."  Remember, a few small groups of Jews had found their way back from Babylon to Israel.  They had been sent to Babylon because of their idol­atry and disloyalty to the Lord.  Knowing that Satan is the "accuser of the brethren" (Rev.12:10), he was no doubt claiming the Jews as his own.  Had they not sinned by forsaking God?  And when they had been warned by their own prophets, had they not refused to repent, even killing or otherwise mistreating them?  Did not their own law forbid such acts under the penalty of death?  It was only justice, I can hear Satan say, to destroy these people forever from the earth.  For a while, it looked as if Satan had won, for the Jews were delivered over to one of his servant nations.  There he had seen to it that they were gradu­ally assimilated into the Babylonish culture, forgetting their origins and their God even more completely.  They were as a brand being consumed in the fire!

Then the Lord, having great mercy on his people, provided an escape.  It was, as the angel said, as if a brand had been plucked from the fire.  For the Lord had cho­sen Jerusalem and was going to permit its restora­tion.  "So, Satan," the angel was saying, "I cannot do more than refer you to the Lord for proper censuring:  the Lord rebuke you, O Satan, for your total lack of mercy and compassion."

But what about the body of Moses?  Yes, can you not see?  The body of Moses was simply that small group of Jews still zealous for the Torah, still zealous for the work of the Lord, and willing to leave the luxury of Babylon to come to a ruined and desolate land to rebuild it for the Lord.  Were not these people, the loyal rem­nant, the "body of Moses?"  If Paul could have designated the disciples of Jesus as the "body of Christ," surely Jude could have called those Jews who were saved out of the fire, the "body of Moses."

So I believe.  But there are two other hints in Jude that as he was writing his epistle he had Zechariah's oracles before him.  In verse 23, he says, regarding our labor to save people from destruction,

Save others, snatching them out of the fire; and on some have mercy with fear, hating even the garment polluted by the flesh (Jude 23).

As the Lord snatched the "body of Moses" out of the fire, so might we have op­portunity to snatch sinners out of the fire of eternal damna­tion.  As Zechariah sug­gested a clean mitre for the high priest because he hated even one speck on his clothes, so should we hate that garment spotted by the flesh.  For, as Paul said, Christ is going to present to himself a church without spot or wrinkle or any such thing.

In retrospect, it seems very plausible that Jude was referring mostly to the prophecies of Zechariah as he wrote his admonition to the church.  His phrase "body of Moses" was not a reference to a superstition but was of the same order of speech as Paul's metaphor, the "body of Christ."  Another bit of evidence to con­firm this suggestion, though less plain, is Paul's likening the espousal of Zion (a name for the faithful of Israel) to the Lord as being married to the law.  The death of Christ freed her to marry another, that is, Christ himself (Rom. 7:1-4).  If, then, the espoused bride of Jesus Christ is his "body," as Paul explains in Ephesians, why wasn't Zion, married to the law, that is, Moses, be the "body" of Moses?

Perhaps Jude also referred to a portion of prophecy which tradition had passed down and attributed to Enoch.  Who can say?

I can see no compelling evidence that the epistle of Jude is not ex­actly what the church has traditionally maintained:  an authentic, di­vinely inspired message written by someone of the apostolic church be­fore A.D. 70.  As such, it forms a part of the Holy Scriptures that we all need to study and obey.

I might add one more thought:  the word "brand" connotes a limb of a tree that is being burned in the fire.  Why did Satan so object to saving this particular frag­ment of wood?  Perhaps it was because out of that "limb" was to come forth the BRANCH that the angel mentioned in Zechariah's presence.  See Zec. 3:8, 6:12-13.  The term "branch" is a ti­tle for the Messiah, Jesus Christ.  (As a matter of fact, the high priest had the same name, Joshua, as Jesus, for one is Hebrew and the other Greek.  And some of the promises made to the high priest seem more ap­propriately applied to Jesus of Nazareth.)  Jesus sprang from the tribe of Judah, one of the three tribes held in captivity in Babylon.  It was necessary to restore the Jews to their land and to the law of Moses to pave the way for the Messiah to come forth in due season.  And per­haps Satan knew this—which is the real reason why he was so desper­ately trying to frustrate the restoration of Judah.

We now take a close look at the second epistle of Peter.

THE SECOND EPISTLE OF PETER:

The church of the first three centuries was in doubt about the apos­tolic genuine­ness of this epistle.  Though it was accepted by many of the leading teachers of the time, it was rejected by others.  Their grounds for rejecting it were mainly that the style of composition of the first epistle, which was accepted without question as being authored by Peter, was different from the second.  Those who supported the canon­ization of the second epistle attributed the difference of style to that of the Greek translator or scribe who actually wrote the document.  Evi­dence that favors Petrine authorship is the distinctive vocabulary of the two epistles:  some of the words appear only 2 or 3 times in the rest of the New Testament.  Examples are "precious," "virtue," "supply," "without spot" or "without blemish," "spots and blemishes" (which is unique to Peter), and "ungodly."

My correspondent from England had another objection to accepting the second epistle as genuine:  the Greek word Tartarus appears in it (2 Pet. 2:4, translated "hell").  Tartarus was the Greek underworld where the Titans were confined after their revolt against Zeus.  Ac­cording to my correspondent, such a mythological reference has no place in God's holy word.  I asked him what about Hades, which also appears many places in the New Testament?  By his logic, all such passages should be rejected as spurious.  (He didn't have any answer.)

Once again, I am not going into a lengthy discussion of all the pros and cons of the Petrine authorship of the epistle.  My goal is simply to demonstrate a linkage of ideas with other New Testament writings that are of such a subtle nature it is highly unlikely a forger could have written it.

We have already mentioned the fact that much of this epistle also ap­pears in Jude.  It is not with this portion that I am presently con­cerned.  I wish to take a good hard look at chapter 3, and to show that the ideas expressed there have a solid connection with a passage in the gospel of Luke.

In this chapter, it is the author's desire to remind us of warnings spoken first of all by the holy prophets, and finally by the Lord Jesus Christ:

Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, and saying, Where is the promise of his coming?  for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the begin­ning of the creation (2 Pet. 3:3,4).

We are reminded that the earth was once destroyed by water.  Appar­ently, we are to remember that it was 120 years from the time God first warned man of the impending flood until it actually came.  Perhaps (and it seems highly likely) those men were also scoffers, ridiculing Noah and saying, "Where is this flood you've been telling us about for over a hundred years?  You are nothing but a crackpot."  But they were mis­taken.  The flood actually came and destroyed everyone not in the ark.  Peter makes the point that Christian apostates are willingly ignorant of the judgment of the flood.

Even so, the coming of the Lord, though delayed for possibly thou­sands of years, shall actually happen.  It will also be accompanied with a destruction of the earth, not by water this time, but by fire.

Now let us study a passage in Luke, where the Lord is warning us to be ready for his coming.

Let your loins be girded about, and your lights burning; And ye yourselves like unto men that wait for their lord, when he will return from the wedding; that when he cometh and knocketh, they may open unto him immediately. Blessed are those servants, whom the lord when he cometh shall find watch­ing: verily I say unto you, that he shall gird himself, and make them to sit down to meat, and will come forth and serve them. And if he shall come in the second watch, or come in the third watch, and find them so, blessed are those servants. And this know, that if the goodman of the house had known what hour the thief would come, he would have watched, and not have suf­fered his house to be broken through. Be ye therefore ready also: for the Son of man cometh at an hour when ye think not (Luke 12:35-40).

One of his disciples asked Jesus if these words were meant for only themselves or for everyone?  The Lord answered as follows:

Who then is that faithful and wise steward, whom his lord shall make ruler over his household, to give them their portion of meat in due season? Blessed is that servant, whom his lord when he cometh shall find so doing. Of a truth I say unto you, that he will make him ruler over all that he hath. But and if that servant say in his heart, My lord delayeth his coming; and shall begin to beat the menservants and maidens, and to eat and drink, and to be drunken; The lord of that servant will come in a day when he looketh not for him, and at an hour when he is not aware, and will cut him in sun­der, and will appoint him his portion with the unbelievers (Luke 12:42-46).

Let us now compare various elements in Jesus' words and those of 2 Peter.

 

             LUKE 12:35-48                               2 PETER 1:19; 3:3-10

The subject is the coming of the Lord.	The subject is the coming of the Lord.
Let your loins be girded about, and your lights burning.	We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place. . . ."(2 Pet. 1:19).
The Lord's coming might be in the second watch or the third watch. . . just be ready, for we know not the hour of his coming.	The coming of the Lord might be delayed for what to him is but a day or two, though, to us, it might be a thousand years or more.  Just be ready, for the Lord is not slack concerning his promises as  men count it.
There will be evil stewards who shall tire of waiting for their Lord to come.  Thinking he has delayed his coming, they will eat and drink and be drunken and will begin to beat their servants.	There will be scoffers who question the Lord's coming, seeing that the fathers have been dead for a long time and he hasn't come yet.   Such men walk after their own lusts.
If the goodman of the house had known when the their was coming, he would not have allowed his house to be broken into.	"But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night' (2 Pet. 3:10).

 

The similarity of thinking is too great here to be accidental.  Whoever the author of the second epistle was, he was thoroughly familiar with the teachings of Jesus concerning his second coming.

But there is an even stronger link.  The disciple who asked Jesus to whom he was addressing his remarks was Peter himself:

Then Peter said unto him, Lord, speakest thou this parable unto us, or even to all?  (Luke 12:41).

Another and even more telling link is this:  "Jesus said, And if he shall come in the second watch, or come in the third watch, and find them so, blessed are those servants" (Luke 12:38).  Peter said, "But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day" (2 Pet 3:8).

Both Jesus and Peter were referring to a Scripture in one of the Psalms:

For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night" (Psa. 90:4).

Where Jesus compared the apparent delay in his coming to "watches in the night," Peter used "days."  But both are saying exactly the same thing: what appears to be a long time to humans is but a short time to the Lord.  I like the way Jesus put it—if he should come in the second or third watch.  When I served in the U.S. Navy during World War II, I had to stand watch frequently.  Usually, my watch began at midnight and lasted until 4 A.M.  What was only four hours seemed like an eter­nity, especially when one was dying for sleep as I was.  Many a time I just knew that morning would never come.

The evidence seems sufficient—the Apostle Peter wrote the second epistle, just as it states.  Let me propose this scenario:

From Peter's question--was Jesus talking solely to them that day, or to all men—it seems as if he expected the Lord to set up his kingdom in Peter's own lifetime.  And I don't really think any of the apostles at first had even the dimmest suspicion that thousands of years were to elapse between the arrival of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost until the arrival of Jesus personally and bodily to execute judg­ment.  It appears, and the tenor of their activities in Acts and elsewhere sup­ports this, they thought their mission was to first of all convert Israel to Jesus, then, hav­ing done that, preach to the immediately surrounding Gentile nations who were mortal enemies of the Jews.  This would take at most only a few years.  They also had heard Jesus say something that may have led them to believe that some of them would not die until they saw the Son of man coming in his kingdom (Matt.16:28).

Peter, in particular, may have had even more reason than most to suppose Jesus would shortly return.  During one of the Lord's appear­ances after the resurrection, he predicted that Peter would die a mar­tyr's death.  When Peter inquired about the status of John, Jesus said, "If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? follow thou me" (John 21:22).  Had I been there, I would probably have inter­preted his rebuttal to mean that he would return before all of the apostles died.

Therefore, when Jesus said it might be a while before the Son of man came, they may have thought he meant merely a few years, but certainly his coming would be within that one generation.

Then, something like 35 years later, Peter is arrested by Nero and taken to Rome.  He knows he will shortly be executed even as Jesus had prophesied.  For he says, "Knowing that shortly I must put off this my tabernacle, even as our Lord Jesus Christ hath shewed me" (2 Pet. 1:14).  Perhaps he knows about Paul's execu­tion.  Certainly, many of the saints have been martyred.  The Jews have become increasingly hostile to the Christian sect.  No longer are there any great revivals among them.  Not only that, some apostasy has already appeared:  some of the pastors have given up waiting for the Lord's return and have "begun to eat and drink and get drunken and beat their servants."  The Lord does not appear to be any closer to coming now than ever.

Suddenly, the light dawns!  So that is what the Master meant when he said he might come in the second or the third watch!  It might be thousands of years, for the Psalmist compared a watch in the night to a thousand year interval.  Already, Peter could see that persecution, cou­pled with what some discerned to be a delay in the Lord's coming, was instrumental in many falling away.  Now it all made sense.

Therefore, Peter desired to leave us his last message, a warning that even though the Lord might not come for a thousand years or two, we should not get discour­aged; for just as certainly as God finally (after a 120 year delay) destroyed the earth with water, so would he, after an indefinite time that may seem long to us, destroy the earth again with fire.  "Saints," he is saying, "don't give up.  Don't be discour­aged.  It will happen exactly as he said.  Don't align yourselves with false teach­ers and scoffers who tell you differently."

This last thought leads us to perceive yet one other link, and it may be the strongest of all, that ties this epistle to the teaching of the Lord.  When Peter asked his question that day (to whom was Jesus ad­dressing his remarks), one of the points that Jesus made concerned the faithful steward over God's household, that is, the pastor.  That man would be highly blessed of the Lord if he should be found faith­fully feeding his people their proper food when the Lord came.

Now when Peter, with six other apostles, saw the resurrected Jesus after a night of fruitless fishing, Jesus asked Peter if he loved him.  When Peter affirmed that he did, Jesus said, "Feed my lambs."  Three times Jesus asked, "Do you love me, Simon?" and three times he said, "Feed my sheep [or lambs]" (John 21:15-17).   From then on Peter re­garded himself as a pastor over the flock, and considered it his duty to feed them from the word of God, "not by constraint, but willingly; not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind; neither as being lords over God's heritage [not smiting the servants], but being ensamples to the flock" as he wrote in his first epis­tle.  Thirty-five years later, languishing in prison in Rome, he could look back on a faithful performance in carry­ing out his Master's orders to "feed my sheep."

But with death eminent, something else the Master had said suddenly flashed into his consciousness.  Peter's mind went back to that dis­course Jesus gave about his coming from the wedding and how he had ended his homily with, "Be ye therefore ready also: for the Son of man cometh at an hour when ye think not."  Peter remembered how he had asked the Master to whom was he directing his re­marks, just to the twelve, or unto all?  He vividly remembered how Jesus turned and, looking straight at him, said, "Who then is that faithful and wise stew­ard, whom his lord shall make ruler over his household, to give them their portion of meat in due season?  Blessed is that servant, whom his lord when he cometh shall find so doing."

With those words ringing in his ears, he called for a friend who was better con­versant with Greek than himself (for it is written that Peter was "ignorant and un­learned"—Acts 4:13), to whom he dictated the fol­lowing words:

Wherefore I will not be negligent to put you always in re­membrance of these things, though ye know them, and be established in the present truth.  Yea, I think it meet, as long as I am in this tabernacle, to stir you up by putting you in remembrance; knowing that shortly I must put off this my tabernacle, even as our Lord Jesus Christ hath shewed me.

Moreover I will endeavour that ye may be able after my de­cease to have these things always in remembrance (2 Pet. 1:12-14).

Not only until death, but even after death, Peter sought to warn his brethren of the perils that lay ahead.  That, my friends, is the true pastor's heart.  Certainly, Peter was found faithful, when his Lord came to get him, in "giving them their por­tion of meat in due season."

I have absolutely no doubt that Peter wrote the second epistle bear­ing his name.