Simon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ,
To those who through the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ have received a faith as precious as ours:
Where does our faith come from? Peter understands that it’s not from us, but the righteousness of Jesus. It’s not something we produce, but something we receive.
We have no faith unless we receive it from our God and Savior Jesus, and His righteousness is what we receive it through. It’s by those means (the means of Jesus’ righteousness) that we receive this faith. Paul confirms this when he wrote about salvation in his letters. He wrote to the Ephesians in Ephesians 2:8
“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.”
In 2 Peter 1, Peter says the same thing, but from a different perspective. We all have different perspectives, but Peter is a man who uniquely understands the origins of faith. Simon Peter was an eyewitness to Jesus’ ministry; he was right there! But he was even more than just a witness. He was a participant. As one of the Twelve disciples, he was a friend of Jesus and knew firsthand what Jesus taught about faith.
Peter also understood this well because he could remember standing on water. He was one of only two human beings throughout the entire timeline of recorded history who stood on water! He could remember standing, and then abruptly sinking and hearing Jesus tell him directly, “ye of little faith”. As Peter writes 2 Peter1:1, it’s possible he recalled being drenched, soaked with water, hearing the very voice of Jesus reverberate through his memory asking him, “why did you doubt?” Of all the disciples, Peter took the most of Jesus’ rebukes, probably because Peter was bold and blurted out whatever he thought at the time. Peter was a man who denied knowing Jesus three times, even after being warned that this would happen! Because of all this rebuking, failing and messing up, he knows how incapable he is as a human without this faith, and how incredibly powerful faith can be.
In the book of Luke (Luke 22:31) we learned that Jesus had told Peter,
“Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.”
Peter knows that his faith is a gift from God. Acting as the great high priest who lives to intercede for us, Jesus prayed for Peter’s faith. Therefore, Peter guards it as something that’s precious. For Peter, it’s more precious than anything the world could ever offer, because it’s something that the world could never give.
Simon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ,
To those who through the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ have received a faith as precious as ours:
Grace and peace be yours in abundance through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.
We receive Grace and Peace how? Through the knowledge of God and of Jesus.
How much Grace and peace do we receive? an Abundant amount. And who’s grace and peace is it? It’s ours! It belongs to us. Yes, it’s from God, created by God, but it’s being given to us- Abundantly. But it’s something we can be very possessive of. We needn’t worry about taking the love of God’s grace and Peace to an unhealthy level. I’ve been to churches that warn believers about falling in love with things of the world, and rightfully so. 1 John 2:15 says, “Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.”
We as humans are very prone to wander from the true God and make idols of things like clothing, cars, real estate, gold; other sinners are more “sophisticated” or “refined” and make idols not of things, but ideas like comfort, fun, happiness. But Peter here mentions that there are gifts from God (Paul calls these types of gifts, “gifts of the Spirit” in Galatians 5:22-23) that we can take and possess and cherish and cling to. He mentioned that precious Faith before, and now he adds Grace and Peace to these. So that’s the first two verses. Let’s read on:
His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.
Verse 3 says God’s Divine Power gives us everything we need for life and godliness. Think about that. An All Powerful God uses his power to equip us to live a godly life! That also comes the same way grace and peace come to us. Through Knowledge of Him. Everything we need for our life and for our Godliness is given to us by way of God’s divine power, through our knowledge of Him who called us.. When we study calvinism we learn about this “calling”. The Fourth point of Calvinism. This calling leads us to a concept known as irresistible Grace. It isn’t something we do or say or accept, to God’s elect, it’s an irresistible response to a call. Kind of like a reflex movement, it’s something that acts on us and we respond without a choice. We are the passive recipient. How are we called? Peter says in verse 3 we are called by his own glory and goodness. God calls us how? Just by being Glorious and Good? God’s nature and his attributes of Glory and Goodness draw us to him, but we aren’t saved just because God is Glorious and Good. If that were the case, salvation would be universal. God calls us by revealing to us his glory and goodness, He uses his Holy Spirit to open our eyes, to change our hearts and when that Glory and Goodness are revealed to us, we then have knowledge, and when we know we have no alternate response, but to worship what has been shown to us. When we see God’s glory and goodness revealed, and understand what we’re seeing, the only thing we can do is respond to this call.
Jesus came to earth to be used by God to fulfill God’s precious promises. In John 10:10, Jesus claimed that he came so that we could have life and have it Abundantly. We learn of Jesus’ Divine purpose. In this passage here in verse 4, we read the same purpose, but Peter says it from a different perspective. Jesus came to fulfill God’s precious promise. That Promise is to spend eternity with God, but to do that we must escape from the corruption in the world. Jeses came so we could be saved from that corruption that’s caused by our evil desires. Christ said the Son sets you free. When we live a life that’s enslaved by our evil desires, our sins, our flesh, we never reach the full abundance of life Jesus Promised in John 10:10. We can never live a life that glorifies God unless we are set free. We are saved by faith, not works, but in salvation we aren’t just witnesses. Like Peter, we’re supposed to be participants. We’re called to participate in divine nature.
It’s clear from this and other scriptures that people aren’t saved by their works, but by grace, through their faith, and from the first verse in 2 Peter we know that faith doesn’t come from within us, but from God and the Righteousness of Jesus. And we can’t come to God, unless we have been called (and see his glory and goodness for what it is). So nothing so far has been based on our effort or any works or actions by us. But Peter did say that we’re supposed to “participate in the divine nature.” Our entirely passive salvation is just the beginning of this participation in the divine nature. Just the resuscitation from death into an abundant life. Moving on,
For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
What’s going on here? Peter says that we are supposed to make an effort now. There’s work to be done. So we need to make every effort to add goodness to our faith. This faith came from where? the righteousness of Jesus Christ. Not from us. But we have a role here. It’s not an entirely passive life we are to lead. Our salvation is not from us or our works, our will isn’t “free” and God is sovereign over our choices. Sometimes understanding a Calvinist Biblical worldview leads people to assume that since everything was already planned out and predestined by God, that somehow translates into our action being unimportant or not having a unique role or purpose. But the Bible tells us we are to Participate in the divine nature. We’re called to add goodness to our faith, and knowledge to our goodness. Well, we know that our faith originates and is given to us by the righteousness of Jesus. And as a result of that faith, goodness comes out. Is that goodness from us? James 1:17-18 says,
“Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all he created.”
So the goodness that’s being added to faith is not from us either, it’s from above. On top of that, this scripture says God “Chose to give us birth.” These are definitely things that are credited to God. But must we still make an effort to add this goodness to faith? Not just make AN effort, but Peter says we must make EVERY effort. But why? Why do we have to work so hard?
Paul writes in Ephesians 2:10 “For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”
I love that verse in particular because it answers the age old question, Why are we here? We were created to do good works. We need to work. Not because it brings us salvation or any closer to God’s love, but we need to do good works because that’s the reason we’ve been created. That’s our purpose. That brings God glory, and fulfilling our purpose leads to our JOY! AND on top of that, God already prepared these good works in advance! Our lives were set up and planned out to do these things! These good works include internal growth, like when Peter says grow in knowledge and self control and perseverance, but they also spill out to interpersonal relationships. Things like brotherly kindness and love. These things listed here that Peter tells us to build on could constitute an entirely new sermon. And that’s Peter’s list, in Paul’s letters they also discuss all sorts of good works involved in building up or edifying a body of believers in a church. There is a lot of effort on our part, which is why he mentions Perseverance. We are supposed to keep running the race. We are supposed to not tire of doing good. it’s a lifetime pursuit and we need to persevere. This should be a wake up call for those who are idle, but it’s also a message of reassurance for those of us who are working hard but having difficulty or growing weary. Fortunately, just a few verses ago in vs3 Peter has told us that His divine Power has given us everything we need for life and Godliness. God equips us to be able to do these things. The Christian life is not supposed to be easy, if you’re growing weary, getting tired, enduring hardship, that’s NORMAL. in fact, it’s healthy, because if we aren’t going through this hardship and discipline, that could be a bad sign [Hebrews 12 talks more about this]. Let’s finish up.
But if anyone does not have them, he is nearsighted and blind, and has forgotten that he has been cleansed from his past sins.
Here Peter makes another statement that confirms that these good works don’t save us. Why? Because people who do not make every effort to have these qualities, on top of being nearsighted and blind are forgetful of the cleansing of past sins. If good works did save us, then these forgetful, unproductive, and blind people would no longer be cleansed from their sins anymore, and wouldn’t share in salvation. Right? Peter doesn’t say If anyone doesn’t make every effort to add to these qualities he is no longer saved and cleansed from his past sins. But the Biblical answer, As it is written, they have been cleansed from their past sins, even if they aren’t living out their divine purpose of adding to these good attributes. Your salvation is secure. But this statement is scary enough, even if you don’t lose your salvation, you are forgetting something.
Now we learned in the past 8 verses that Knowledge of God is a vehicle or a conduit through which we receive all of these divine gifts. Knowledge is power, Forgetting is ineffectiveness.
Therefore, my brothers, be all the more eager to make your calling and election sure. For if you do these things, you will never fall, and you will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
This last part makes me smile. We are to be eager to grow as believers and make effort and do works in order “to make our calling and election sure.” We know that the elect are saved, and God knows that the elect are saved, and he will not let the elect go or fall from his hand. So doing good works ensures our salvation? Does that make any sense? In one sense it doesn’t, because we can’t add anything to our salvation. If we’re saved, then we will continue in our faith. If we don’t continue, we were never saved. However, God is omniscient. He knows everything. What sense does it make to “make our calling and election sure”?
God’s already sure, because he knows everything, and he knows who’s His from since the beginning of time. So this “sureness” isn’t for God’s benefit. And the Bible gives us certainty that the Elect will be saved, so theologically, the Elect have no uncertainty. We, on the other hand, are the ones that benefit from this “eagerness to make our calling and election sure.” We are the ones that need the certainty when we’re feeling weak, when we doubt whether or not we are the elect. But God, in his grace, watches out for us so we don’t need to feel unsure about where we stand. In 1 Corinthians 1:21 Paul explains
“Now it is God who makes both us and you stand firm in Christ. He anointed us, set his seal of ownership on us, and put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.”
God gives us guarantees along the way. The activity of the Holy Spirit in our hearts guarantees that we are owned by our Creator. There will be times where we feel weak or unsure about where we stand. People always worry about where they stand. This is great because it says “it is God who makes both us and you stand firm in Christ”
When we are feeling weak, we can trust in Jesus’ Righteousness to strengthen our faith. We can remember that Jesus prayerfully intercedes to God on our behalf. We can also rest in the knowledge that God’s divine power has already given us everything we need to participate in the divine nature. And as we see these qualities develop in our lives; the goodness, the self control, the knowledge, the perseverance, the brotherly love, and the sense of God’s agape love, we can be sure that after this life, we will be richly welcomed into God’s eternal Kingdom!