“Simon Peter, a bond-servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who have received a faith of the same kind as ours, by the righteousness of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ: 2 Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord; 3 seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence. 4 For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust.”
THE RECIPIENTS OF THE LETTER
Unlike 1st Peter, the Apostle does not designate this letter for any certain region or city. There may be any number of reasons for this; one could even be that it was in the original manuscript but somewhere along the way got dropped. It really doesn’t matter, and in fact, may be the greatest of blessings if it was dropped. The exclusion of a specific address may even have been deliberate on the part of the author for the reason I am about to cite.
You see, lacking any particular designation to a physical place or an historical group of people makes the wording of his salutation panoramic in its scope in regards to its target audience. Of course, since it is inspired by the Holy Spirit it is certainly timeless and sent to all who believe in all times.
But despite our tendency to think in finite terms, we can read these opening words of his and without presumption say, ‘this was sent to me, because I am one of those he describes here’, if we are indeed a Christian.
Who is Peter writing to? “Those who have received a faith of the same kind as ours, by the righteousness of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ”
Let’s break it down some.
First, he says ‘those who have received a faith of the same kind as ours’.
That is a vitally important distinction to make. There are many faiths in this world. By that term we mean ‘belief systems’. People put their faith in something. When they say they have no faith in anything or anyone that is not entirely accurate. Because when a man comes to deny faith in anything outside of himself his faith is usually in himself.
If he has lost that also he is usually ready for some serious counseling and is probably not very productive in his daily life and routine. By the time a person has rejected faith in all else and lost faith in self he or she has nothing to cling to for hope.
So laying the condition of those poor souls aside for the moment, I repeat, people have faith in something, whether it be a god, a philosophy, their material endeavors, their hedonistic pursuit of the lusts of the flesh, or just a silly, thoughtless generalized so-called ‘faith’ that everything is going to be okay, even though they have nothing of substance in which to base that trust.
Now in the time that Peter wrote the most prominent religious or philosophical faiths would have been Judaism, Agnosticism, worship of the Greek gods, or a declared atheism, which is a faith whether the professed atheist thinks so or not.
So it was important for him to address his letter to those who shared a like faith with him and his companions in ministry, because it was a faith based upon right standing with God through faith in Jesus Christ. For anyone who did not fit that designation this letter could not begin to have application.
That is especially important for us to understand today in our century, believers in Christ, because there are many in our world today, even some cult groups that call themselves ‘Christian’, who think that no matter what the distinctives of our various religions are, if we have faith that is all that matters and we are all going to go to a heaven of some form or another and there is no difference between us that would make one of us more right than the other.
In fact, the thinking inspired by the spirit of the age is that if we declare that our faith is valid and other faith systems are not, that alone proves that we are not right, and sets us apart as narrow-minded, intolerant and bigoted.
So Peter could not simply say, “to those who have faith”. He could not even say “to those who have faith in God”.
How applicable is the question of the prophet Amos who asked, (3:3) “Do two men walk together unless they have an agreement?”
And the admonition of Paul to the Corinthian church (2 Cor 6:14) “Do not be bound together with unbelievers; for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness?”
We most often hear that verse quoted to admonish single people to be careful who they fall in love with, because they are only asking for future sorrow if they bind themselves to an unbeliever. That’s a valid application of course, but it is not the only one.
It has become taboo in our society to voice a belief or an opinion that goes against the grain of popular culture. I believe the day is not far off when it is going to be downright dangerous, here in our democracy, to publicly stand for absolute truth.
Thomas Aquinas was a philosopher and theologian of the 13th century, who is often quoted as saying, “If the whole world is against truth, then I am against the whole world”. And believers in Christ, you and I had better be prepared to echo that sentiment; we had better be willing to be labeled ‘narrow-minded, intolerant and bigoted for standing firm on the truth of God’s Word. Because He cannot deny Himself and if we deny Him, even with our silence, then He must deny us.
There is one fellowship of light; there is one and only one spiritual partnership and it is one of right standing with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Peter could have no partnership nor agreement with any other, but he had everlasting agreement and partnership with those of the same faith. That is us, and it is to us he writes.
We who are of the faith based upon the righteousness that comes from God through Christ are the recipients of this letter. It is ours and no other’s.
THE THINGS GRANTED TO US:
Pertaining to life and Godliness
Peter’s salutation in verse 2 is a prayer that the grace and peace that only come from the knowledge of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ would be supplied to them in abundance.
That is his desire for them, but he goes on to declare something they need to know in order to fully appreciate what they have received through Christ.
This is something that Christians today often miss, I think, and it is something I wish I could send out in a world wide, universal email that ends by saying ‘if you pass this along to 10 friends you will be blessed’.
Here it is. God’s divine power has granted to us, as born again believers, everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence.
What does this mean?
It means that Christians can stop looking for something more. It means true believers in Christ can cease their self-flagellation over past sins or present weaknesses and they can cease seeking mystical experiences and special revelations. It means they can stop wondering what they can do to be more acceptable to God, and they can stop wondering how they can get the special relationship with Him that some others seem to have.
Here is a truth for every Christian; every person who has the Holy Spirit in them as a gift from Jesus.
God, by His divine power, and that is resurrection power; it is the power He has to subject all things to Himself; it is the power that raised Jesus from the dead and now keeps every believer safe for eternity; by His divine power He has permanently bestowed on them – on us – everything pertaining to life and godliness.
In other words, everything pertaining to our regeneration and our sanctification. He has given us the divine life and He has given us everything we need to continue in the sanctifying process. We needn’t ask God for more, we only need to be obedient to His Word and His Spirit.
Do you see the wording of the verse? The only thing we need is a true knowledge of Him who called us, because a true knowledge brings first life, then, and progressively, sanctification.
Now let me clarify this. It is not that we come to know Him and thereby receive life and godliness. By the term ‘true knowledge’ Peter is referring to the knowledge of Him that is a result of our spiritual rebirth. That’s why it is true knowledge. It is not a mental assent to a truth, but a knowledge that only the spiritually alive can have. It isn’t knowledge about Him, it is knowledge of Him; like I might say ‘I know my wife” or “I know my Father’.
By giving us this life, by bringing us into this knowledge of Him, He has lavished upon us everything we will ever need; life to begin and the power to live in obedience, to continue.
On this verse John MacArthur wrote:
“The great power that gave Christians spiritual life will sustain that life in all its fullness. Without asking for more, they already have every spiritual resource needed to persevere in holy living.” The MacArthur New Testament Commentary – 2 Peter & Jude, John MacArthur, Moody, 2005
Precious and Magnificent Promises
Peter uses this phrase ‘granted to us’ again in verse 4, but before we look at what more is granted to us by Christ, notice he says ‘For by these…’ clearly referring back to the end of verse 3 where he says Christ called us by His own glory and excellence. So we need to understand these terms.
It will help to take note that Peter says He called us by these things. Christ draws us to Himself in salvation when by His Spirit and by the message preached to us we are brought to see His glory and His goodness.
His glory would refer to His deity, since in scripture glory is only attributed to God. His goodness, or His excellence would be a reference to His moral attractiveness as the perfect, virtuous Man who had no sin.
So whereas in the previous verse Peter says that through God’s divine power He granted to us life and sanctification, bringing us to Himself in significant relationship, here in verse 4 he says that it was this glorious, sinless, utterly trustworthy God-Man who granted to us all the promises that relate to salvation, grace, guidance, wisdom, joy, blessings, spiritual provision and power to live the obedient life, future resurrection and glorification and the eternal rewards that he talked about in chapter 1 of his first letter.
PARTAKERS OF A NEW NATURE
Now it is essential for the Christian to understand that he is, having been granted all these things, a sharer now of God’s very nature.
The primary purpose of this letter is to denounce and warn against the error that was being introduced into the church by false teachers. The agnostics of Peter’s day, and today the New Age teachers, set forth as of greatest importance the pursuit of transcendent knowledge; a surpassing of knowledge only of the material and corporal world, lifting the seeker above any need for social or moral restrictions.
Peter wanted us to understand that true knowledge is not something attained to by some mystical, out-of-body contact with spirit-guides, or finding a divinity of our own by looking deeply enough within ourselves.
It is personal knowledge of the one true God that only comes as a result of spiritual rebirth from above, granted by the divine power that is His.
It is then and only then that we are empowered to live a life of victory over sin, because it is a victory that He has won and brought to us. It is then and only then that we can rise above our base nature and live free of the corruption that is in the world by lust, because He has imparted His own nature to us and we live according to that.
Our bodies will one day be glorified and made perfect but in the meantime we do not have to wait to share in the divine life; He has made us to become partakers with Him of that life now.
DYNAMITE
Christians, I do not have to be a witness to the quality of teaching that must be going on in a great many churches across our land. I do not have to see into Christian homes and document the number of hours people spend in their Bibles, to know that there is something missing, both in the pulpit and in the lives of people who make up the church.
I only have to look at our society itself. I only have to listen to things people say about the church and about Christians, and I only have to listen to things Christians say and the way they respond to life in general, to know that the truth isn’t being taught or understood.
Some people left our church a few years ago and sent me an email to explain why they were leaving. They said they were not being ‘fed’ by my sermons and that I was putting too much emphasis on who we are in the Lord and what His Spirit has wrought in us.
Well that is exactly what they weren’t getting, so it’s too bad they left.
What is keeping a great many believers from a powerful, vibrant, satisfying walk with Christ is that they have been handed a shallow, legalistic, emotion-based brand of religion and they are either afraid or their teachers are afraid to tell them that they are loaded with divine dynamite!
The bottom line of all that Peter has been saying in these verses, and I really mean the bottom line because it is the last line of verse 4, is that by all things God has granted to us and done in us we have escaped the corruption that is in the world.
Now that word ‘corruption’ is a term that refers to the decomposition of a dead body.
When I read that I was reminded of Paul’s desperate question at the end of chapter 7 of Romans, “Who will deliver me from the body of this death?” and then his triumphant answer, “Thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ our Lord”. Rom 7:24-25
Think of the account of the raising of Lazarus in John 11. Because this is what Christ has done for you, believer. He has brought you back from not only death, but decay. And when He called His friend out of the tomb and Lazarus came hopping to the door -unless the Holy Spirit carried him there; it doesn’t say, but the way they wrapped people he would have had to hop unless otherwise transported- when he came to the door Jesus didn’t say, ‘Now hop back to your sisters’ house and they’ll fix you a nice cup of tea’.
He instructed them to unbind the man from the clothes of death. He didn’t belong in them any more. They didn’t fit. They were in appropriate.
Christians! You are no longer as those who have no hope! You are no longer enslaved to the entity that is sin. It is no longer your master. You no longer have to depend on yourself and your own resources to stay alive and live successfully in a dog-eat-dog world. You no longer have death in your future. You will not die.
You have been given life and holiness and precious, valuable promises for now and an eternal future.
Take off the grave clothes, and start feeling your new spiritual muscles!
When Peter said ‘divine power’ in verse three he employed a word that both he and Paul enjoyed using. It is the Greek word from which we get the English, dynamite.
Paul said it this way: “Now to Him who is able to do exceeding abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us.” Eph 3:20
When God called you to Himself, believer, it was not simply to rescue you from Hell. The work that He did in giving you new life was not a sort of spiritual initiation into His club, so you could start earning merit badges and climb from cub to eagle (I don’t know what the girl scout ranks are). He exercised his resurrection dynamite to lavish on you everything you will ever need for life and godliness and to instantly and permanently provide you abundantly with all spiritual blessings for now and eternity.
There is nothing more He can do for you than He has already done; nothing He can give you that you do not already, by His power and grace, possess.
And He did and gave all these things because He wanted you to be partakers, sharers, partners, in the divine nature. That is His nature. That is the Divine Nature that is characterized by dunamis, dynamite, power.
People who are deceived by the false teachers believe that what they are hearing lifts them up, enables them, gives them personal strength and inner fortitude.
The deceivers make them think they are gaining wisdom that transcends the wisdom of the common man and power for living that will give them a leg up on their competitors and even their peers.
It is the sort of teaching that Peter and Paul and Jude and other preachers of their day were up against and it has not gone away.
What is actually happening when people, even well-meaning Christians fall for these charlatans is that they are being weakened. They are being held down and held back. They are deceived into thinking they are doing well because they are being taught to run faster than most, completely unaware of the wings that adorn their back.
Christians, you are still in this world but the moment you believed you transformed into a creature that is not of this world. This world no longer has power over you. You have escaped corruption. You have been made brand new, and as a birthday present God employed His resurrection power to also infuse you with a share of that power, His own nature, and provided you with everything you will ever need to live in holiness, to practice obedience, to rise above the corrupted circumstances of the world, and eventually, to wing your way home.
Do you have a true knowledge of Him who called you by His own glory and excellence? Then the world has nothing to offer you and the world can take nothing away.
Put off the old grave clothes. Put off fear. Put off dread of tomorrow. Put off the lure of the lusts of the flesh. Put off, as the writer to the Hebrews said, ‘the sin which so easily entangles’… and… FLY!
