Okay preterists, this commentary may help you understand also......
Since the fathers fell asleep.—What fathers are meant? Four answers have been given to this question: (1) The ancestors of the human race;
(2) the patriarchs and prophets; (3) the first generation of Christians; (4) each generation of men in relation to those following. Probably nothing more definite than our remote ancestors is intended. The expression “fell asleep” is used of St. Stephen’s death in
Acts 7:60 (comp.
Matthew 27:52;
1Corinthians 7:39, where the word is not literally translated;
1Corinthians 15:6;
1Corinthians 15:18, &c). The thoroughly Christian term “cemetery” (=sleeping-place), in the sense of a place of repose for the dead, comes from the same Greek root.
There is a passage quoted by Clement of Rome (circ. A.D. 100) which seems at first sight to contain a reference to this verse: “Far be from us this Scripture where He saith, Wretched are the double-minded, who doubt in heart and say, These things we heard in the times of our fathers also, but behold, we have grown old, and none of them has happened to us” (Epistle to the Corinthians, xxiii.). But the remainder of this “Scripture,” as quoted by Clement, is so utterly unlike the verse before us, that one suspects some other source. And this suspicion is confirmed when we find the same passage quoted in the so-called Second Epistle of Clement (xi.) as “the prophetic word.” (See on
2Peter 1:19 and on
2Peter 2:9). The differences between the two quotations are such that the pseudo-Clement appears to be quoting independently, and not merely borrowing from the true Clement. In neither case does close inspection encourage us to believe that our present verse is the source of the quotation. But the quotation by the true Clement is important as a complete refutation of the objection that “the fathers” means the first Christians, and consequently no such scoffing argument as this would be possible in the lifetime of St. Peter This very argument was not only in existence, but was condemned in a document which Clement before the close of the first century could quote as “Scripture.” Comp. Epistle of Poly carp, chap. vii.: “Whosoever perverts the oracles of the Lord to his own lusts, and says there is neither resurrection nor judgment, he is the firstborn of Satan.”
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