Nathanael Hardy (1618-1670) on 2 Peter 2:1 and Jude 4

Hardy:

The more to enforce this upon us, take notice,

1. Who it is, the Son, and that in a double notion.

(1.) Being the Son, he ‘thinketh it no robbery to be equal with God,’ Philip, iii. 5, inasmuch as, according to the Athanasian creed, he is God of God, light of light, very God of very God. Being the Son, he is heir of all things. Lord of heaven and earth; and shall we in any kind, or for any cause, deny him? This is that which St Jude brings in as an aggravation of the sin of these very antichrists, whom he calls ‘certain men crept in unawares, they denied the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ,’ Jude 4; where, though some take the words disjunctively, applying the first clause to the Father, and the second to the Son, yet since there is no article in the Greek between theon and kurion, God and Lord, to divide them; yea, the word despotes, in that parallel place of St Peter, is evidently used of Christ, and withal the heresies of those times more directly struck at Christ than at God the Father; it is not improbable that St Jude intended here only to set forth Christ in his natures and prerogatives, whom he calls ‘the only Lord God’ (as elsewhere the Father is styled ‘the only true God’), not in exclusion of the other persons, but of all false deities. And now, when we set before us the divinity, majesty, sovereignty, and authority of Christ, the only Lord God, how must the sin of denying him appear beyond measure sinful!

(2.) This glorious and eternal Son of God was pleased to undertake and accomplish the work of our redemption, and it would be no other than a monstrous ingratitude to deny him. Upon this account, St Peter, speaking of these very antichrists under the name of false teachers, 2 Pet. ii. 2, aggravates their denial of Christ, in that it was of ‘the Lord that bought them.’ There cannot be a more execrable villainy, than for a slave to disown his lord that hath ransomed him. Who would not cry shame on that son who should deny his own father? And may I not say of the Son of God, in Moses his language, to every one of us, Deut. xxxii. 6, ‘Is not he thy Father that hath bought thee?’ ‘What is there thou canst be in danger of by acknowledging him, which he did not actually undergo to redeem thee? Is it loss of estate? he was poor; of credit? he was reviled; of liberty? he was bound; of life? he was crucified; and shall any of these dishearten us from honoring, or induce us to deny him? When therefore any temptations shall assault us (as once they did Peter) to deny him, let us remember what he is in himself, and what he hath done for us; let us consider his greatness, and be afraid; his goodness, and be ashamed; for fear, or shame, or any cause whatsoever to deny him.

2. That I may drive the nail to the head, let us often set before our eyes that dismal communication so often denounced in the Gospel by the Son of God himself against those who shall deny him. Mat. x. 33, ‘Whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven;’ and again inculcated by St Paul, 2 Tim. ii. 13, ‘If we deny him, he will deny us:’ a threat than which none more just, and yet withal none more terrible. Just it is, in that it is the retaliation of like for like. What more rational than that despisers should be despised, forsakers should be forsaken, and deniers should be denied? And how terrible it is will soon appear, if you consider that the Son of God will then deny us, when he shall appear in his glory, that he will deny us not only before men, but angels, nay, his Father; that if he pronounce upon us an know you not (which is to deny us), we are the cursed of the Father; he will not acknowledge them for his adopted children, who durst not here own his begotten Son, and whom his Son will not then own for brethren; yea, which consummates the misery of such apostates, they must ‘have their portion with hypocrites,’ having denied Christ; and being denied by him, they must depart from him into that fire which is prepared for the devil and his angels, there being no reason that they should be near to Christ hereafter, who follow him afar off, nay, run away from him here.

Nathanael Hardy, The First General Epistle of St John the Apostle, Unfolded and Applied (Edinburgh: James Nichol, 1865), 344.   [Some spelling modernized; underlining mine.] [Note: Of further interest here is that Hardy's thinking here predates the Granville Sharp rule by about one century.]

The Westminster Annotations (Second Edition) on 2 Peter 2:1 and Jude 4

2 Peter 2:1:

Denying] By total apostasy, or evil life, unbelieving the servants of Christ, Tit. 1:16. See more on Jude 4.

The Lord that bought them] That gave a price sufficient for them, even his own precious Blood, Acts, 20:27; 1 Cor. 6:20; 1 Pet. 1:18, 19. Or, by whom they professed that they were redeemed: and therefore they should not have denied him.

Annotations Upon all the Books of the Old and New Testament: This Second Edition so enlarged, As they make an entire Commentary on the Sacred Scripture: The like never before published in English. Wherein The Text is Explained, Doubts Resolved, Scriptures Paralleled (London: Printed by John Legat, 1651). [No pagination.]

Jude 4:

ungodly men] Such as worship God not aright; or have no fear of God at all, Gen. 20:11; Psa. 30:1; Rom. 3;18.

turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness] The grace of God invites us to sobriety, Tit. 2:11,12, but they turn it to a contrary end.

Denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ] Denying Christ to be God, who was their master by profession (for the professed themselves to be of his household) and their Lord by public authority over them. Or, by their deeds denying Christ.

Annotations Upon all the Books of the Old and New Testament: This Second Edition so enlarged, As they make an entire Commentary on the Sacred Scripture: The like never before published in English. Wherein  The Text is Explained, Doubts Resolved, Scriptures Paralleled (London: Printed by John Legat, 1651). [No pagination.]

[Notes: These two brief comments demonstrate that the early Reformed theology was able to interpret these verses in such a way that Christ, as Lord and Master, is the subject, while also allowing that the "buying" was by way of a sufficient redemptive price for them.]

Andrew Willet on 2 Peter 2:1 by way of Jude 4

Willet:

And deny God the only Lord, and our Lord Jesus Christ]

These words thus translated seem to speak of two persons, of God the Father, and God the Son: but indeed the whole sentence is to be understood of Christ, who is called God, and despotes, master, and Kurios, Lord: so that Lord here in the first place should be translated master: for Christ is God, in respect of his Godhead with his Father: he is our master, because he has bought us, 2 Peter 2:1, he is our Lord, because by him all things are preserved, 1 Cor. 8:6, Heb. 1:3, so that he is God as our creature, Lord as our preserver, and master as our redeemer.

Andrew Willet, A Catholicon, that is, A general preservative or remedie against Pseudocatholike religion gathered out of the Catholike epistle of S. IVDE, (Printed by Iohn Legat, Printer to the University of Cambridge, and are to be sold at the sign of the Crowne in Pauls Churchyard by Simon Waterton, 1602), 23.   [Some spelling modernized, underlining mine.]

[Note: Willet here reflects the Christological reading of 2 Peter 2:1 and Jude 4 which was the more general and received exegetical position in early Reformed theology.]

Richard Baxter on 2 Peter 2:1

Baxter:

The fifth text which I shall insist on is 2 Pet. 2.1,

“But there were false Prophets also among the People, even as there shall be false Teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.”

And verse 20, &c:

“For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the World through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning: for it had been better for them not to have known the way of Righteousness, then after they have known it, ti turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them: But it happened to them according to the true Proverb, ‘The Dog is turned to his own Vomit again, and the Sow is turned to her own wallowing in the mire.’”

Whereunto for fuller explication add but Jude’s words of the same men, ver. 4. “Ungodly men, turning the Grace of our God into Lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ,” put all these together because they all speak of the same men.

Now 1. The Text expressly says, they denied the Lord that bought them.

2. That is it is the Lord Jesus that is the Lord appears.

1. In that it is expressly said in the 20. ver. that it was by the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, that they escaped the pollutions of the World.

2. Jude expressly says, “They denied the Lord Jesus Christ.”

3. There have been few that have denied God among all the Apostates in comparison of those that have denied Christ: Nay, it is a great doubt whether it can  be proved of any, directly that were in those times.

4. Their Apostasy is described by “turning from the holy Commandment delivered to them,” which is called “the way of Righteousness,” and to their former Vomit (which must needs be the state they were in before they turned Christians) and to the mire, after they were washed; And this state of Apostasy is opposed to “escaping the pollutions of the World, by the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ,” so that it is left past doubt that it is the Lord Jesus Christ that bought them whom they are said to deny. And Jude says of them, that “they are twice dead, plucked up by the roots,” by which it appears that after their first death, they had received some kind of new Life by Christ.

Lastly, Note, that here are many benefits which they received, which could not have befallen them, but through the Death of Christ; They could no other way have been washed and have escaped the world’s pollutions, and have known the way of Righteousness, &c., yea Jude says,”They turn the Grace of God into Lasciviousness,” therefore it was a sin against Grace: and all Grace is by the blood of Christ: yea it iseems they had themselves some Grace, that is, (Mercy contrary to merit and tending to a recovery), which they so turned into Lasciviousness. And Peter in the next chapter shows that their Apostasy lay in a not-believing Christ’s second coming, because of his seeming delay, and therefore they gave themselves up to their Lusts, and said mockingly, “Where is the promise of his coming?” so that it is both evident that they were purchased by Christ, and that it is Christ that bought them whom they are said to deny.

Augustine Marlorate on 2 Peter 2:1, by way of Calvin and Luther on Jude 4

Marlorate:

1) Which turn the grace of our God unto wantonness] Now he declares manifestly, what manner of mischief that is, that they should beware & take heed of: namely this: that these false Apostle & deceivers, abused the grace of God unto all wantonness & licentiousness, thinking, that because their sins were forgiven, they might do what they list [wished]. They sinned therefore without all shame, and willingly fell back again into the slavery and bondage of sin, from whence Christ had redeemed them by the shedding of his blood. C [Calvin.] The grace of God verily appeared to a far other end, then to get[?] men to leave to sin, as Paul plainly witnesses, saying: “The grace of God hath appeared healthful to all men, teaching us, that denying ungodliness, and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, and righteously, and godly in this present evil wild,” [P. to Tit. 2. vers. 11]. Let us know therefore, that there is nothing more hurtful & pernicious than these kind of men, which of the grace of Christ, do take an occasion to live wantonly and licentiously. And because we teach, that we are saved by the free mercy of God, the Papists lay this to our charge as a great fault. But what does it prevail with words to confute their shamelessness, sith [since] everywhere & in all places we call earnestly upon repentance, the fear of God, & newness of life. They themselves do not only corrupt & mar the whole world by their evil examples & wicked life, but also take quite out of the world by their pestilent and wicked doctrine, true holiness and the pure worshiping of God. M [Martin. Luther.] Indeed they call themselves Christians, and brag much of the gospel, but they live such a kind of life, as they do whatever pleases them, sinning most wickedly and abominably in drunkenness, in lechery, and all abomination. Their Bishops and Prelates do vaunt and say, we have taken upon us, not a worldly, but a spiritual state and condition of life: under which name & false pretense, they have gotten great treasures, pleasures, and dignities: [Calvin] although we may rather think them to be like the Libertines of our time, of whom Jude speaks, as it shall more clearly appear in the discourse hereof. It follows.

And God which is the only Lord.] Certain old translation have, “Christ which is the only God & Lord.” In the epistle of S. Peter mention is made only of Christ, and there he is called Lord. For thus he writes, “even denying the Lord which has bough them,” [2. Peter. Vers. 1.]. A [Augustine. Marlorate.] If any man think it better to read it differently or by itself, then the sense will be, “Chiefly they deny God,” L. [Pelicane.] whom once they have professed, which is the only Lord of al things, both in heaven and earth. It follows.

And deny our Lord Jesus Christ.] C. [Calvin.] He understands Christ to be denied, when such as have been redeemed by his blood, have given themselves again to be bondslaves to Satan, making as much as in them lies, the incomparable and inestimable benefit & price of our redemption, to be frustrate & of none effect. Therefore let us remember that Christ died and rose again for us, to the end that he might make us a peculiar people to himself, & that he might be Lord of our life, and death. A. [Aug. Mar.] Again, Christ is denied, when we derogate from him, that which is his own: After which manner the Monks, and such like deny Christ. M [Mar. Lut.] For when they preach that the way to eternal happiness & felicity, is to fast, to gad & wander on pilgrimage, to build Churches, and Monasteries: to vow chastity, obedience, poverty, and such like: they plainly deceive the simple and ignorant by their works, but of Christ they make no mention at all: which is as much, as if they should say, it is very needful and necessary for thee to deserve heaven by thy own works, Christ profited thee nothing, his works cannot help thee: and so they deny the Lord, who has bought us with his blood.

Augustine Marlorate, A Catholic and ecclesiastical exposition uppon the epistle of S. Iude. The Apostle: Collected and Gathered out of the workes of the best writers by Augustine Marlorat, that most notable and excellent Divine, (At London by Gerard Dewes, and Henry Marshe, 1584), fols 9-11. [Some spelling modernized.]