We have all heard the word “multitudinous” (even the spellchecker knows it). Shakespeare made up this word, but when he said it in his play “Macbeth”, everyone knew what he was talking about. Macbeth’s guilt was so vast that it would turn the entire ocean red:
“Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood
Clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather
The multitudinous seas incarnadine,
Making the green one red.”
So too, with Peter’s use of “stability” (stērigmos) in this, his last words.
You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, take care that you are not carried away with the error of lawless people and lose your own stability. But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.
Not only is it only used here in the Bible, the only other recorded instance in all of historic literature, is where speaking of the local pagan priests, Diodorus Siculus wrote about 100 years before Peter:
ἀσκήσει δὲ καὶ γυμνασίοις ἐνισχύουσι τὰ σώματα, ἵνα ἐν ὑγίειᾳ καὶ στηριγμῷ διατελῶσιν.
They also strengthen their bodies through exercise and training, so that they may remain in health and firmness.
Peter introduced an exercise program earlier in the letter.
2 Peter 1:5-9
For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love.
For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins.
That program starts with faith and that faith is in grace.
As we take our eyes off grace we lose our “stability” (stērigmos).
It is built off the word:
στηρίζω stērízō, stay-rid'-zo; from a presumed derivative of G2476 (like G4731); to set fast, i.e. (literally) to turn resolutely in a certain direction, or (figuratively) to confirm:—fix, (e-)stablish, stedfastly set, strengthen.
We should not for a second forget our former sins. No, don’t dwell on the guilt. Focus on God’s grace.
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