Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of 2 Peter 1:3
According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that [pertain] unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue:
3. According as his divine power ] Better, Seeing that. The Greek word for “divine” is found elsewhere in the New Testament only in 2Pe 1:4 and Act 17:29.
life and godliness ] The words at first suggest the union of outward and spiritual blessings, the things needful for body and soul. The words that follow shew, however, that “life” must be taken in its higher sense, as extending to the eternal life which “standeth” in the knowledge of God. The word for “godliness” is found elsewhere in the New Testament only in this Epistle (2Pe 1:6-7, 2Pe 3:11), and in Act 3:12, where it is used by St Peter, and in the Pastoral Epistles (1Ti 2:2; 1Ti 3:16 ; 1Ti 4:7-8, et al.), and like that for “knowledge” in 2Pe 1:2 is characteristic of the later period of the Apostolic age. In the LXX. of Pro 1:7 a kindred word appears as an equivalent for “the fear of the Lord.” Its strict meaning is that of “true reverence for God,” and so far answers more to “religion” than to “godliness,” the state of one who is “godly” or “like God.”
through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue ] The word for “knowledge” is the same as in 2Pe 1:2, and fixes, as has been said, the meaning of “life” in the previous verse. In the last four words the English text mistranslates the preposition, and we have to read “ by (or through) His own glory and virtue.” Some MSS. give the simple dative of the instrument ( ), and others the preposition with the genitive ( ). For the word “virtue” see note on 1Pe 2:9. Its recurrence three times in this Epistle (here and in 2Pe 1:5) and so rarely elsewhere in the New Testament (Php 4:8 only) is, so far as it goes, in favour of identity of authorship. Taking the true rendering, the thought expressed is that the attributes of God manifested by Him are the means by which He calls men to the knowledge of the truth.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
According as his divine power hath given unto us – All the effects of the gospel on the human heart are, in the Scriptures, traced to the power of God. See the notes at Rom 1:16. There are no moral means which have ever been used that have such power as the gospel; none through which God has done so much in changing the character and affecting the destiny of man.
All things that pertain unto life and godliness – The reference here in the word life is undoubtedly to the life of religion; the life of the soul imparted by the gospel. The word godliness is synonymous with piety. The phrase according as ( hos) seems to be connected with the sentence in 2Pe 1:5, Forasmuch as he has conferred on us these privileges and promises connected with life and godliness, we are bound, in order to obtain all that is implied in these things, to give all diligence to add to our faith, knowledge, etc.
Through the knowledge of him – By a proper acquaintance with him, or by the right kind of knowledge of him. Notes, Joh 17:3.
That hath called us to glory and virtue – Margin: by. Greek, through glory, etc. Doddridge supposes that it means that he has done this by the strengthening virtue and energy of his spirit. Rosenmuller renders it, by glorious benignity. Dr. Robinson (Lexicon) renders it, through a glorious display of his efficiency. The objection which anyone feels to this rendering arises solely from the word virtue, from the fact that we are not accustomed to apply that word to God. But the original word ( arete) is not as limited in its signification as the English word is, but is rather a word which denotes a good quality or excellence of any kind. In the ancient classics it is used to denote manliness, vigor, courage, valor, fortitude; and the word would rather denote energy or power of some kind, than what we commonly understand by virtue, and would be, therefore, properly applied to the energy or efficiency which God has displayed in the work of our salvation. Indeed, when applied to moral excellence at all, as it is in 2Pe 1:5, of this chapter, and often elsewhere, it is perhaps with a reference to the energy, boldness, vigor, or courage which is evinced in overcoming our evil propensities, and resisting allurements and temptations. According to this interpretation, the passage teaches that it is by a glorious Divine efficiency that we are called into the kingdom of God.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
2Pe 1:3-4
His Divine power hath given unto us all things.
The Divine liberality
I. THE FOUNTAIN.
1. The hope of the petitioner. The experience of former mercy works a persuasion of future mercy.
(1) Let us pray in confidence that God will hear us, because He hath heard us. A noble princess asked a courtier when he would leave begging; he answered, when she left giving.
(2) Seeing that God gives more where He hath given much, let us be thankful; for how should God bless us with that we have not if we do not bless Him for that we have?
2. The ability of the Giver. Here is power, yea, Divine power; not only great, but good. For mercy and majesty must meet together in the donation of all things that pertain to life and godliness. The knowledge of this Divine and giving power may comfort the most dejected heart.
(1) Concerning the salvation of others and ourselves; how desperate soever we judge their estates, by reason of their continual habit of sinning, yet this Divine power is able to convert them.
(2) This comforts us in the midst of all afflictions. We are weak in ourselves, unable to stand under the lightest cross; but there is a Divine power that strengthens us. Though it doth not nullify our sorrows, yet it doth fortify our patience (Col 1:11).
(3) This comforts us in prayer.
(4) This comforts us against all opposition, even those principalities that wrestle against us (1Jn 4:4; Rev 12:11).
(5) Let this hearten us to cheerful liberality; because, whatever we lack or lose, there is a Divine power able to requite it (2Co 9:8).
3. The liberty of the action. God does not set, nor let, nor sell, nor lend, but give.
(1) How to judge of all we have; as the Lords gifts, not our own merits (1Co 4:7; 1Co 15:10).
(2) Follow Gods example, in being evermore giving good things.
4. The necessity of the receivers.
(1) We had nothing; miserable beggars.
(2) We deserved nothing.
5. The universality of the gift. All things that pertain–
(1) To life.
(a) Natural. He put a soul to our flesh, gave birth to the child, nourishment after birth; bread when we were hungry, drink when we were thirsty, etc. To the wise man his wisdom, to the strong his might, to the wealthy his riches, etc.
(b) Spiritual; whereby we live to Him, and in Him, and whereby He lives in us.
(2) To godliness. By His grace we come to godliness, and by godliness to life.
II. The cistern. The ever-flowing and over-flowing conduit is Christ, in whom dwells all fulness (Col 1:19). The more capacious a vessel of faith we bring, the greater measure of faith we shall receive.
1. The water of life, which is an effectual calling to glory and virtue.
(1) Who hath called us. Christ alone can call home sinners.
(2) The action. There was a time when Christ came personally to call. He went out from His majesty that is invisible, to His mercy that is manifested in His works. Now He calleth at divers times, in divers places, and after divers manners.
(a) In all ages of the world, and of mens lives.
(b) Some from their ships, others from their shops, etc.
(c) After divers manners. First, by the preaching of the Word; and herein He useth two bells to ring us to church, the treble of mercy and the tenor of judgment. Next, in His sacraments.
(3) Whom hath He called? Us–miserable sinners, that were deaf and could not hear Him, lame and could not meet Him, blind and could not see Him, dead and could not answer Him.
(4) To what? To glory and virtue.
(a) In present being. We must understand by glory the honour of being Christians; by virtue the good life that becometh Christians.
(b) Hereafter we shall come to a perfect and plenary possession. The virtue there is a pure white garment without spot, and the glory a golden crown of eternity.
2. The pipe and bucket to draw and derive all to us. Through the knowledge, etc. One was of opinion that a philosopher excels an ordinary man as much as an ordinary man excels a beast; but every true Christian excels a philosopher as much as a philosopher does a dunce. They scarce knew God in His creatures; we know God in His Christ. There is no pleasure so sweet as knowledge, no knowledge so sweet as that of religion, no knowledge of religion so sweet as that of Christ; for this is eternal life, etc. (Joh 17:3). Let us therefore use the means to get knowledge.
(1) Read the Scripture; that is Gods will, there is knowledge (Joh 5:39).
(2) Frequent the temple; that is Gods house, there is knowledge (Psa 73:16-17).
(3) Resort to the Communion; that is Gods maundy, there is knowledge (1Co 11:26).
(4) Consult His ministers, for the priests lips preserve knowledge. (Thos. Adams.)
The wonders of Divine grace
I. The greatness of Divine grace. His Divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness. The reference here is to our Saviour Jesus Christ.
1. Grace comes by Divine power. It is no angelic effort or human invention. Its wisdom is Divine omniscience. Its power is Divine omnipotence. Its activity is Divine omnipresence. Its resources infinite. Its love the eternal love of God:
2. It supplies every real need. Life is the state and godliness the activity. In the gift of the Holy Spirit every possible want of the soul is met.
II. The method of Divine grace. It comes through the knowledge of Him that calleth us by His own glory and virtue. In knowledge is the spring of life. Our actions are governed by our volitions, our volitions by our emotions, our emotions by our knowledge or belief. Thoughts of Christs love set our hearts all aglow with love to Him, and that love becomes the spring of a new and holy life.
III. The consolation of Divine Grace. Exceeding great and precious promises.
IV. The glory of Divine Grace. That through these ye may become partakers of the Divine nature.
V. The foe of Divine Grace. The corruption that is in the world by lust. There are two great spiritual cities: in the one there is corruption by lust, in the other life by godliness. The Divine new life is in peril in the poisoned air, that life which to the believer is infinitely more precious than all besides. (The Freeman.)
All things that pertain unto life and godliness.—
All things pertaining to life and godliness given unto the saints
I. That the people of God are to live godly lives.
II. That for this life and godliness, Divine power bestows everything necessary.
1. It is necessary that He should give us all things, for we have nothing in ourselves.
2. It is very gracious of Him to give all things. We were told that during the first winter campaign in the Crimea, our armies were subject to many sufferings and privations on account of inadequate provisions. This might have been so; it often has been so in times of war, and no human power can prevent it. But it can never be so with the armies of the Cross. Divine power is our guarantee.
III. The text teaches us that all things are in Christ, and obtained through the knowledge of Him.
IV. That among the all things we have in Christ the promises are especially to be prized.
V. That the possession of these heavenly gifts makes us partakers of the Divine nature. (H. Quick.)
Christ the complement of our life
In the sunshine there is a colour for every plant that seeks its own hue out of sunshine, and in Jesus Christ there is every possible hue which the heart could want. All things that pertain to godliness are in Christ–in other words, Christ is the complement of our nature. When I use that word complement–a mathematical term–I infer that just as a segment of a circle may be a very small thing, and may need the rest of the circumference to be its complement, so, whatever be the segment of your life, Jesus Christ is the complement of all the rest. He just fills out your deficiency and makes you a complete thing. It is no use a man saying he was born deficient in patience, because there is all the patience of Jesus to complete his impatience; no use for a man to complain of weakness or cowardice, when any kind of want comes, which has been permitted to come into his life that he might learn to appropriate the fulness of Christ. So the apostle gloried in his infirmity, because he said–the smaller the segment is the more of a complement I get, and a man may even be proud in a sense of the natural deficiencies of his nature, because he is thrown back upon Jesus Christ, in whom everything is stored to make him a saint. (F. B. Meyer, B. A.)
Called us to glory and virtue.—
A glimpse of glory
I. That whereby a Christian may have title, interest, and comfort, in life and glory. It is not a knowledge of calling in general, but of that particular calling of ourselves to glory and virtue. This doth interest us in the promises of God (Act 2:39). No calling, no promise. Nay, further, without this there is no encouragement to holiness (1Ti 6:12). By our calling, which is by an eternal purpose and grace of God in time, changing and renewing us unto holiness of life, we come to know the eternal decree of God, which otherwise were presumption to look unto. For, as a princes secret mind is made known by edicts and proclamations, which before we durst not search into, neither could know, so when Gods secret counsel to execution is manifested, by changing our hearts, by calling us from the world to an holy calling, in a sanctified life: this, then, is no presumption, but duty in us, by our calling, to judge of our election, and so of our calling to glory and virtue. If you look for an example of this, see that of St. Paul (Gal 2:20).
II. That this knowledge of our particular calling is one of the strongest motives unto all goodness. So we see the apostles in their opinions still urge holiness and sanctification from this ground of the assurance of calling and election (Gal 5:13; Eph 4:2; Col 3:12). He that hath no assurance of this calling can have little comfort in performing of holy duties. A fearful, doubting soul lives in much vexation.
Use 1: The first is against all such as oppose this doctrine, chiefly the Papists, who are for that, that a man should not inquire after the assurance of his salvation.
Use 2. The second is, that every man then must try his title, what calling he hath.
Use 3: The third is for instruction. If this be so, let not then any man dare to confound the external calling of men with the internal calling of God. Further, how precious this calling should be unto us, we may see (Luk 10:20). Here is only cause of true joy. By this then be sure to take thy warrant of rejoicing, fetch it out of this calling, that God hath called thee to glory and virtue, which is the next thing to consider of; our calling to glory and virtue; I mean a consideration of these things whereunto we are called, glory and virtue.
1. Glory. Glory is the end of all. The glory of God is the furthest reach and end of all things, and virtue is the way leading unto glory. This glory then we speak of is the reward of goodness, and is ever attended with virtue. For as shame and sin still go together, so do glory and virtue, even by the testimony of the consciences of all good and ill men. The glory then we speak of is an eternal glory. It is not meant, when he says called to glory, that a Christian is only called unto that, and unto nothing else by the way, but by the way he is called unto virtue, and by occasion unto afflictions. But Gods end of calling us is unto glory; as 1Th 2:12. This glory is only of His mercy, from whence glory floweth unto us; mercy is the ground thereof. What shall I say of
(2) Be thankful to the Giver, not only for spiritual, but even for temporal things. It is not enough to take the whole loaves, but let us even gather up the fragments. And if God gives all to us, let us give something to Him. Not only my goods, but myself.
(3) Be not proud, arrogate not that to thyself which is Gods gift.
5. These promises are signed, sealed, delivered, and bound with an oath.
(1) God hath put His hand to them in the gospel.
(2) The two sacraments are the seals.
(3) They are delivered to us (Rom 8:15). Use: From the stability of Gods promises to us let us learn to be constant in the performance of our promise, both to God and to man.
II. An inheritance. Gods nature may be participated two ways, of quality and of equality.
1. For equality: this is only proper to the three Persons of the Trinity.
2. Our participation must be only qualitative: by nature we understand not substance, but quality, by grace in this world and by glory in the world to come. This communication of the Divine nature to us is by reparation of the Divine image in us (Heb 12:10; Eph 4:24; Rom 8:29).
(1) As servants of a Master; not merely as creatures; so all men partake (Act 17:28).
(2) As subjects of a Prince; and thus we partake with the King of heaven in many benefits.
(3) As sons of a Father: thus we partake many things of the Divine nature.
(4) As members of a Head (1Co 12:27).
(5) As branches of a Vine (Joh 15:1-27.).
III. A deliverance.
1. The discovery of great danger.
(1) The infection, corruption of lust. It gets into the thoughts, senses, tongue, hands, etc.
(2) The dispersion through the world. Consider the villainy, misery, inconstancy, insufficiency of it.
2. The recovery. We have escaped, not by our power, but by His grace that hath delivered us (Psa 124:7). There is a fourfold manner of freeing captives.
(1) By manumission (Joh 8:36).
(2) By commutation. Christ was killed; we escaped.
(3) By ransom (1Ti 2:6; 1Pe 1:19).
(4) By violence (2Ti 4:17). God did all this for us, and shall we do nothing for Him, for ourselves? (Thos. Adams.)
The promises of God
I. The excellency of the Divine promises. The promises of Scripture are generally declarations which God has made of His intention to bestow blessings upon His faithful people. Under the Old Testament dispensation the promises mainly related to the future advent of the Messiah. The Christian covenant is, in fact, one comprehensive promise (Jer 31:33-34; Jer 32:40; Heb 8:6-12). So that illumination, pardon, holiness, and union with God–that is, all imaginable mercies–are included in this one rich and overflowing promise.
II. The design for which these promises are given–that by these you might be partakers of the Divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. The two designs of the promises, then, are a deliverance from the corruptions of the world and a participation of the purity of God. What this corruption is need scarcely be described. Men by their concupiscence and ungoverned passions corrupt each other. The Divine nature stands opposed to all this corruption. We are to be holy as God is holy.
1. That this is the direct tendency of the Divine promises may appear, first, from the consideration that it is in the view of His love and grace as displayed in the gospel of His Son, which God is pleased chiefly to employ to win the heart to His service.
2. The assurances of assistance offered to us in the promises tend also directly to promote holiness. The promise of forgiveness excites us to forsake sin; the promise of inward grace to mortify it.
3. Again, the condition annexed to the promises make them the powerful means of producing in us conformity to the Divine nature. These are frequently expressed. To him that ordereth his conversation aright will I show the salvation of God. The meek will He guide in judgment.
4. But I ask once more, What is the matter of Gods promises–what are the blessings themselves which they hold out to us? Do they not all either imply holy obedience or directly include it? Repentance, faith, love, joy, hope, peace, strength, communion with God, are subjects of the promises; and what are these but parts of sanctification?
5. I ask, again, what are the direct and necessary effects of such promises, when they are received? They are the nutriment of faith which worketh by love. They inspire hope which purifies the heart even as God is pure. They work therefore not as an opiate to stupefy, but as a medicine to restore. And all this they do, not by a mere natural process, but by the gracious appointment of God.
III. The test which it furnishes of our state before God. If men will put a general notion of Gods mercy in the place of His promises; if they will substitute a form of godliness for a Divine nature, and a mere decency and good order before others, for an escape from the corruption which is in the world through lust, they must perish. (D. Wilson, M. A.)
Great and precious promises
Did you ever hear the story how, once upon a, time, a dove moaned and mourned to her fellow-birds of the tyranny of the hawk–the doves great foe? One advised her to keep below; but the hawk can stoop for his prey. Another said, Soar aloft; but the hawk could soar as high as she could. Another said, Fly to the woods; but the woods are the very palace and court of the cruel hawk; safety could not be found there. And another said, Fly to the towns; but there she was in danger of being caught by man, who might even make her a sport for the hawk. At last one said, Fly to the holes of the rocks. Violence cannot surprise the dove there. Thus it is with the soul of man distressed and fearful. Come to me, says Riches, and I will shelter you. No, Wealth is only the devils lure, and, by and by, his rein and his spur. Conic to me, says Pleasure; but she is the very Delilah of the soul, to betray you to the Philistines. Honour says, Come to me; but there is no assurance in any of these. No. Oh, ye that dwell in cities and repose in wealth or pleasure or honour, there is safety in Jesus or nowhere. Leave the cities and dwell in the rock–in the Rock of Ages–fly to the promises, and be like the dove that maketh her nest by the side of the holes mouth.
I. Consider the promises. Ah, if we practically realised the might, the majesty, and the meaning of Gods promises, how happy they would often make us l The astronomer, when he knows that the hour of the planet draws nigh, prepares his glasses and climbs his highest towers, and through its bright farseeing eyes he watches and he waits till he beholds it come labouring along its infinite way. And when it has shone through the darkness its hour or its season, then it fades down again into the darkness till another season shall come, and, perhaps, another astronomer hails its beams. So the promises of God are made to conditions, and they shine like constellations. Oh, sweet garden of the promises! But are they not rather like trees–exceeding great and precious promises? It seems to me, when I study the life of the promises, I come as into a vast and stately forest, planted by the glorious men of God in old time by His will and word; and they are, the fir tree, the pine, and the box together. There are the cedars of Lebanon, which He hath planted; and, like all trees, they are fit for meditation and fruit and use. How cool it is to walk amongst the promises! They are quiet places, and sacred and secret ways, where God, in an especial manner, meets with mans soul. When the glorious sun strikes down, how the promises stretch out their cool arms; and when storms are in the heavens they cannot strike through these boughs. And so every promise conceals or reveals some biography–some way of God in a human soul. Poor Bilney, that noble martyr, lost all comfort after he had recanted till he found the words, This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief. Beza found the life of his hope in words which I can never forget: My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I will give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of My hand. Some of the fathers divided the promises into Pabulum fidei, and Anima fidei–Food of faith, and the Soul of faith. Oh, thou of little faith, see yonder is the state; but do you not see the sunshine falling over it?–those arrowy flakes of gold, they are the promises–the exceeding great and precious promises: when you come to that darkness, fear not, but you shall inherit that light.
II. Exceeding great and precious. Do but think how wonderful it is that God should make Himself known by man. And all Gods works are promises. They are tokens of holiness, and wisdom, and faithfulness. Why do you plant an acorn? Does it not contain a promise? Infinite value is placed here. And methinks if we did but read the works and ways of God in nature aright we should see everywhere the promise of our future. Oh, when I can stand on the great mountain chains of the Bible, what a view I have! And do not promises strengthen? Our whole life is maintained by promise. Without promise we should sink into the deepest places of despair. We need spiritual tonics. We need them to destroy our unhealthy consciousness, which is only another name for weakness. And how glorious that, by these promises, we are able to look beyond the tomb; yes, by them we escape the corruption that is in the world through lust and see our fair inheritance there. But remember one great condition by which you know your relation to the promise–escaping the corruption that is in the world through lust. Here, you see, is the great condition. Have you escaped the corruption? Till you breathe in purer air you cannot expect to breathe the sweetness of this promise. Obedience first, then recompense. (E. P. Hood.)
The promises of God
I. Their greatness will appear if we consider their Author. They derive importance and value from the holiness of God in all its glory, from His justice in all its inflexibility. Finally, they must derive importance from His infinite benevolence and mercy in which they originated, of which they are the magnificent expression and all the resources of which they open. Is there not an important sense, then, in which these promises are as precious, as great as God is glorious? Those, therefore, who neglect them despise Jehovah Himself when making the most interesting appeals to their hearts, and involve themselves in guilt and wickedness proportionable to the glories of the Divine character.
II. The greatness and value of the promises will appear if we consider them in their own nature and properties, or, if we attend to their intrinsic worth. In estimating the value of promises, this is the chief consideration. No matter what may be the rank or character of the promiser, or what the relation in which he stands to us. The promise cannot be denominated great and precious if it relates to an insignificant object or to one that does not meet our exigencies. The great consideration here is: suppose the promises to be accomplished, and all the good that is contained in them enjoyed, will all our capacities be filled? Shall we be completely delivered from all dangers and enemies? Shall we be raised to the perfection of our nature? If so, but not otherwise, the promises, the value of which we are endeavouring to estimate, are exceeding great and precious. Now, tried by this criterion, the promises to which the apostle refers will appear to be fully entitled to the epithets under consideration. For when they are all accomplished in heaven, what want will remain unsupplied? what capacity unfilled, even to overflowing? what danger or enemy will threaten, what desirable good will not be possessed? What will then be wanting to complete the dignity and happiness of human nature?
III. Consider the medium through which these promises have been made, or the way in which these blessings are secured and conferred, and they, too, will show that they are indeed exceeding great and precious. God is in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself, and, therefore, making all the promises through Him. All the promises of God are in Him yea, and in Him Amen. They are all made and confirmed in Him. In Him who, though He was the brightness of His Fathers glory, and the express image of His Person, the Lord, the Creator of angels, and the object of their worship, became the Babe of Bethlehem, the sufferer on the Cross. In Him who, by the exercise of every grace of which innocent human nature is capable, and the performance of every duty in their very perfection, and that in the most difficult circumstances, met all the demands of an absolutely perfect law. In Him, who, by making His life, His blood, His soul an offering for sin by drinking, to the very dregs, the bitter cup of Divine wrath, secured all the blessings contained in the promises.
IV. Consider the number and variety of the promises. We have given to us not an exceeding great and precious promise merely, but exceeding great and precious promises relating to all the endless variety of the believers wants and circumstances and dangers and duties: to prosperity and to adversity, to the body and to the soul, to time and to eternity, to earth and to heaven.
V. Consider next the suitableness of these promises, and this, too, will prove that they are exceeding great and precious. A promise may be valuable in itself, and as it regards the blessing which it exhibits; and yet it may be to the individuals to whom it is made of no importance because it is not suitable to their circumstances. How valuable to some would be the promise of a large sum of money, of a rich and extensive estate, of a crown! What are they to the man who is the victim of a mortal disease, who has only a few moments longer to live? Behold, he is at the point to die, and what are riches and crowns to him? How valuable is a promise of pardon to a convicted and condemned malefactor! But what is it to the man who glories in his innocence and virtue and claims the protection of the law, and the blessings of life as his right? But the promises of the gospel are as suitable to our circumstances as they are great and wonderful in themselves. They secure light to those who are in darkness, and rich supplies to those who are perishing of hunger, and pardon to those who are guilty and condemned.
VI. Consider the immutability of these promises, and this will show that they are exceeding great and precious. How inexcusable, then, is unbelief!
VII. On account of their influence the promises may well be denominated exceeding great and precious. The promises of men often exert an injurious influence on those to whom they are made. They dazzle the eyes of the mind, enkindle a flame of unhallowed feelings, lead astray from the path of duty, and thus prove the most dangerous temptations to sin. How many have been led by them to act a foolish, a base, a disgraceful part! By seeking the honour that comes from men they have lost all the honour that comes from God. But the influence of the promises of the gospel is always beneficial. They ever enlighten and sanctify and stimulate to act wise and noble part. This must be the case, for they make those who embrace them partakers of the Divine nature and keep from the corruption that is in the world through lust. Now we may infer from what has been advanced–
1. That the Bible is an exceedingly great and precious book, for it contains all these promises.
2. We may learn whether or not we are personally, actually interested in these promises.
3. How great the folly and guilt, how wretched the state of those who despise all these promises and reject all these blessings!
4. Remember that the Bible contains not only exceeding great and precious promises, but exceedingly great and terrible threatenings, and the latter are as dreadful as the former are glorious. (W. Scott.)
Divine promises
I. The means whereby God conveys His grace to us, viz., the promises of the gospel.
1. Their excellency is set forth by two adjuncts. They are exceeding great and precious. The one noteth their intrinsic worth and value; they are exceeding great. The other, our esteem of them; they deserve to be precious to us.
2. Their freeness: given, made freely, made good freely.
II. The end and use of them: that by these ye might be partakers of the Divine nature; that is, the communicable excellence of God.
1. Because these are communicated to us by God; they are created in us by His Divine power. We have them by virtue of our communion with Him. They flow from God, as the light doth from the sun.
2. Because by these perfections we somewhat resemble God. Therefore it is said (1Pe 2:9), We show forth His praises, His virtues or Divine attributes, His wisdom, goodness, bounty, holiness; for in these we most resemble Him.
III. the way, method, and order how we receive this benefit of the Divine nature. Having first escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. As we die to sin, the Divine nature increaseth in us. There is a putting off before there can be a putting on (Eph 4:22-24).
1. What is to be avoided: The corruption that is in the world through lust. Observe, sin is called corruption as often in Scripture, because it is a blasting of our primitive excellency and purity (Gen 6:12; Psa 14:1). Observe, the seat of this corruption is said to be in the world, where lust and all uncleanness reigneth, therefore called the pollutions of the world (chap. 2:20). The generality of men are defiled with them, corrupted in their faith, worship, and manners; therefore conversion is called for under these terms (Act 2:40). Lastly, observe that this corruption is said to reign in the world through lust. Besides the bait there is the appetite; it is our naughty affections that make our abode in the world dangerous.
2. The manner of shunning, in the word escaping. There is a flying away required, and that quickly, as in the plague, or from a fire which hath almost burned us, or a flood that breaketh in upon us. We cannot soon enough escape from sin (Mat 3:7; Heb 6:18). No motion but flight becomes us in this case. Doctrine: That the great end and effect of the promises of the gospel is to make us partakers of the Divine nature.
I. Let us consider the effect or end.
1. That it is a natural, not a transient effect. There may be such a sense of the goodness, wisdom, and power of God as may produce a sudden passion; as suppose of fear or love. It may only affect us for the present, but inferreth no change of heart and life. But the promises of the gospel are to breed in us such a temper of heart as may be a second nature to us, a habit or constitution of soul that may incline us to live to God. A habit serveth for this use, that a man may act easily, pleasantly, and constantly.
(1) To act easily. There is an inclination and propensity to holiness.
(2) To act pleasantly. They have not only a new bias and tendency, but it is a delight to do what is holy (Psa 40:8), as being in their element when they are thus employed.
(3) It is a constant principle of holy operations, so that a man doth not only obey God easily, but evenly, and without such frequent interruptions of the holy life.
2. It is a Divine nature; that is, not only such as floweth from God, but may carry some resemblance with Him or to Him. It floweth from God, for we are partakers; it is but a ray from His excellency, and it carrieth a likeness to Him, or cometh nearer to the nature of God Himself than anything that a man is capable of. Now this is said for two reasons–
(1) To show the dignity of it. Nothing known to man is so like God as a sanctified soul. The saints have their Makers express image; therefore if God be excellent and holy, they are so. The image and picture of God and Christ is in them, not made by a painter or carver, but by the Holy Ghost (2Co 3:18).
(2) To show the quality and condition of it. You must have a new nature, and such a nature as may be a Divine nature. If you have nothing above natural men or corrupt nature, you are strangers to the promises of the gospel.
3. This Divine nature may be considered three ways. Either–
(1) As begun; when we are first renewed in the spirit of our minds, and regenerated according to the image of God (Eph 4:23-24).
(2) As increased; when more like God in a conspicuous degree.
(3) As it is perfected in heaven; for there we have the nearest communion with God, and so the highest conformity to Him that we are capable of (1Jn 3:2).
II. Let us now see the means by which God doth accomplish this effect: To us are given great and precious promises.
1. It is an instance of Gods love, that He will deal with us in the way of promises.
(1) A promise is more than a purpose; for the purpose and intention of a man is secret and hidden in his own bosom, but a promise is open and manifest. Thereby we get the knowledge of the good intended to us.
(2) It is more than a doctrinal declaration. It is one thing to reveal a doctrine, another to promise a benefit; that maketh a thing known, this maketh a thing sure, and upon certain terms; that gives us notice, but this gives us interest.
(3) It is more than a prophecy or simple prediction. Scripture prophecies will be fulfilled because of Gods veracity; but Scripture promises will be fulfilled, not only because of Gods veracity, but also His fidelity and justice; for by Gods promise man cometh to have a right to the thing promised.
2. The promises of the new covenant are of a most glorious and valuable nature. They are not about small things, or things of little moment, but about worthy and dear-bought blessings.
3. They are precious promises, worthy of our esteem; for they are not about things that we have nothing to do with, but such wherein we are deeply and intimately concerned. In Gods promises there is due provision made for the desires, necessities, and wants of mankind.
4. All this is given to us wretched men without any desert of ours; nay, we had deserved the contrary.
III. The influence of the one upon the other; or, how do these promises promote the Divine nature?
1. From their drift, which is, to draw us from the creature to God, and the world to heaven; to mortify the esteem of the false happiness which corrupteth our natures; and to raise us to those noble objects and ends which dignify and adorn the soul, and make it in a sort Divine. It breedeth an excellent spirit in us, which is carried above the world, and the hopes and fears of it (1Co 2:12).
2. The matter of the promises. Many of which concern the change of our hearts, the cleansing or healing of our natures (Heb 8:10; Eze 36:25-26; Jer 33:8).
3. The conditions or terms on which our right is suspended. Not pardon without repentance (Act 3:19). Not heaven or eternal life without holiness (Heb 12:14).
4. The power with which the promises are accompanied (Col 1:3). The Divine nature is communicated to us by virtue of the promises; for the Spirit is our sanctifier, and He works by congruous means.
Use 1. Believe the promises, for they are most sure and certain. Gods testimony of the good things He will bestow upon us cannot deceive us, or beget a vain and uncertain hope.
Use 2. Esteem them (Heb 11:13).
Use 3. Labour to improve the belief of every promise for the increase of holiness, that we may be like God, pure and holy as He is (2Co 7:1). (T. Manton, D. D.)
Exceeding great and precious promises
I. First, the source of all the promises is shown by this same apostle to be the abundant mercy of the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ (1Pe 1:3-5). By whatever name called, in whatever dispensation or method made known, the abundant mercy of the ever-blessed God has been the great original, only source of promise to man.
II. Their character. They are exceeding great, or, as the Rhemish version literally translates it, most great. As the announcements of Divine mercy concerning the provisions of redemption for man, we may expect the promises to be so great as to meet all the wants and woes of our fallen nature.
1. One wide, deep, and long-felt want of our spiritual nature is–light. The most enlightened Pagans but guessed at immortality, and felt after the true God among a rabble of false ones. Need I point out to you how Jesus Christ is thus the Desire of all nations? To Him, as the true Light, gave all the prophets witness. Pleasant to the eyes, cheering to the heart, indispensable to labour, assuring to the traveller, longed for by the watchman, an indispensable condition of all healthy growth, and therefore of life, light is in every language the symbol of truth; and as Jesus Christ is the brightness of the Fathers glory, so His gospel is the light of lights in all these respects to believing souls.
2. Another deep-felt want of the human soul is the craving for peace with God. Wherever the religious instincts have been awakened, their most poignant conscious ness has been that of guilt, a dread of the Invisible, and a fearful looking for of judgment. Hence all the self-torments of superstition, and the altars and offerings of Paganism, past and present. And of all the promises of God, none are more exceeding great and precious than those which invite, intreat, beseech men to be reconciled unto God, on the ground of the great propitiation of Jesus Christ for sin. They are more precious than the royal warrant that releases the death-doomed culprit; they are our passport and safe-conduct into present safety and eternal life.
3. Thus we might proceed in regard to every want of the human spirit. Does the quickened soul pant for self-harmony and purity, crying, Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me? Then one of a thousand promises uttered from the heart of God replies, I will sprinkle dean water upon you; from all your filthiness and from all your idols will I cleanse you; a new heart will I give unto you, and a new spirit will I put within you.
4. Does the heart, pre-designed for Divine love and fellowship, feel restless for its adapted element–a good which it knows not, and without which it must inly burn and pine for ever? To all this multitude of weary, feverish souls there comes from the Father of spirits such exceeding great and precious promises as these: Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters: and he that hath no money, come.
5. Again, does the universal soul of man believe in and anticipate immortal life? Does the savage from his instincts, and the sage from his reasonings, expect to live for ever? Does even the bad man inly shudder at the prospect of annihilation, and the good man long for immortality? Then the certainty, the nature, and the path of endless life are the subject-matter of transcendently great and precious promises.
6. Finally, as to the wants of the soul and their Divinely promised supply. The life and immortality–rather incorruptibility–brought to light by the promises of the gospel meet another demand of our nature–the resurrection from the dead. And are they not precious–precious as the free pledges of sovereign, paternal, everlasting grace?–precious as the fruits of Jesus death-enduring love?–precious as the subject of the Comforters ministry to the heart, and the medium of His sanctifying energy therein? They are precious for their past beneficent history in healing wounded spirits and raising fainting hearts. Their greatness and preciousness have been in part realised by the first advent of Christ and this present dispensation of the Spirit. This, however, is but the introduction to the vast volume of good things yet to come. The sons of God are now adopted, but not manifested.
III. This is rendered still more evident by the design of the promises: That we might be partakers of the Divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
1. This declaration inevitably implies that man has lost that participation in the Divine nature which is called the image of God, and which consisted in spiritual knowledge, righteousness, and true holiness.
2. It also implies that there is in mans nature, however fallen, a constitutional capacity (though we know, alas! a deep disinclination) to receive back and reflect the moral character of God.
3. It suggests that all the needful influences are given by the God of the promises, and lie within our reach for the recovery of the Divine nature; and that God holds us responsible for the earnest, prayerful use of those gracious means whereby we may grow into His likeness, and ascend to fellowship with Himself.
4. And this involves most inspiring views of what redeemed humanity may attain even on earth, much more in heaven.
5. This fellowship with God is the only means of escaping the infectious pollutions of moral evil that abound in the world on every side, and that spring from the desires of the heart turned from God to impure and forbidden objects.
6. The promises, then, are indispensable to the attainment of this end. They reveal the Fountain opened for sin and uncleanness, and assure the gift of the Holy Spirit to renew and inhabit the soul. (John Graham.)
The efficacy of the promises
What is the whereby with which the passage commences? designating, as it appears to do, some channel of communication. There are here several antecedents to which the whereby may be grammatically referred; but, without examining a variety of critical opinions, it appears to me the most obvious course to take the concluding words, glory and virtue, as the antecedent which we are in search of; the knowledge of Him that has called us to glory and virtue; whereby–that is, through which glory and virtue–are given to us exceeding great and precious promises. We are called to glory and to virtue–to a warfare that is full of honour, but at the same time full of difficulty, requiring much wisdom and vigour in the combatant. If we obey this calling, and throw ourselves into the conflict, then the struggle in which we are engaged will be the best witness that we are the elect of the Most High. Having this witness, we possess an assurance that the promises of the Bible are spoken specially to ourselves. Now, having thus cleared up the connection between the text and the context, it still remains that I vindicate the description that is here made of the promises given in the Bible. Yet, can this be necessary? If there be a spiritual solicitude for which the Bible contains not a word in season; if there be a doubt which is left without a message to disperse it; if there be an anxiety which is passed by without a whisper to soothe it; and if there be a tear which it dries not; then I will give up the description, and pronounce it overdrawn. But in nothing has God so manifested His wisdom as in the precision with which His Word meets the wants of His people. It were idle to attempt to descend into particulars. Exceedingly great are the promises of the Bible; great in their sweep, for they leave no circumstance unattended to; great in their power, for they bring all the magnificence of eternity to bear on the solicitudes of time. And precious are the promises, as well as great. He who can appropriate them has blessings which no arithmetic can reckon, a security which no contingency can shake, and a help which never can be without use. But there is no need that I insist further on the character that the text gives of the promises. Those who have proved them acknowledge them to be exceeding great and precious; they who have proved them not, want, alas! the spiritual ardour by which their character is to be discerned, and are therefore not to be convinced by the most elaborate description. We all profess to believe that once on the earth the spectacle was exhibited of the human nature adopted into union with the Divine. There was the perfect instance of one of our race being made partaker of the Divine nature: I need scarcely add that the instance will stand for ever by itself; and that the sense in which we alone can share in the nature of God differs from that in which Christ Jesus had share. He had it in essence–we in conformity; He by being God–we only by being renewed after the image of God. The Greek might more strictly be rendered partakers of a Divine nature, and not of the Divine nature. Now, the point which yet remains to be investigated, is the agency of the promises in effecting such a change; for, you will observe, that whilst partaking of the Divine nature is the result, the promises are the means through which it is brought about. Exceeding great and precious promises, that by these ye might be partakers of the Divine nature. The machinery exhibited in the Bible when a spiritual transformation is in question, is the influence of the Holy Ghost, the Third Person of the blessed Trinity. We may be assured, therefore, that when any other machinery is brought on the stage, we are to understand that it is effectual, not through its inherent energies, but only through its being actuated by that Agent. The promises in themselves have no power to animate; but if I believe in the promise, then the promise becomes a quickening thing; and that which as spoken was merely sound that melted into air is now a radiant star which rules me and guides me by the brilliancy of its light. We shall take for granted, in all we say of the power of the promises, that the power is derived from faith, and faith from the Holy Ghost; and we go on to show in the first place the power which promises wield over men in ordinary things, and in the second place, the influence which they exert over Christians in particular. If you took a rapid survey of the various classes and occupations of men, you would find that almost every one is submitting himself to the power of promise. If you enter the crowded marts of commerce, or pass through the courtly circles of ambition, or sit with the student in his secluded chamber, or accompany the dissolute into the haunts of pleasure, the same pursuit is in each case carried on; they are all hunting after some fancied good, which, though it may cheat them at last, engages them at present. Some busy spirit has been whispering into the ear of every man whom you meet, that if he will but follow this course, or that course, he shall attain the object of his desire. And the greatest marvel is, that although the experience of successive ages has shown there is a lie in each of these promises, they nevertheless attain the same credit as ever. If it could, however, come suddenly to pass that an arrest was put on this circulation of promise, there would be an instant standstill in the busy scenes of human occupation. And I need hardly point out how amplified would be the power of promise if there were anything like an assurance of fulfilment. If men can do such things on chance, what will they do on certainty? Now I turn from this rapid survey of the power which promise wields over men in general; and I ask you whether, if you turn the uncertainty of promise into certainty, you may not expect to find the power a thousand times greater which is wielded over Christians in particular? The defects in promise are here done away With; the result which is desired not only may take place, but shall take place. And if a promise, which is both indefinite in its terms and insecure in its pledges, be the efficient thing we have already described, who shall marvel that where the terms are the noblest, and the pledges are the strongest, it shall lead those who believe to work out their salvation with the fear and trembling of men who know themselves to have eternity at stake? I will seek, however, to dissect this point a little more nicely; for it is both of interest and importance. Escaping the pollution that is in the world, we account to be the same thing as being made partakers of the Divine nature. It is by escaping pollution, by withdrawing from the trammels and habits of sinfulness, that this partnership in the celestial character is procured; and if we can show that it is by the promises that pollution is escaped, it will follow that it is through the promises that conformity to the Divine nature is attained. But whether it be by promises or by threatenings that the work is commenced, assuredly it is by promise that the work is carried on. Is the believer disheartened when he considers the might of his spiritual enemies? the promise is kindly whispered, God shall bruise Satan under thy feet shortly. He takes courage, and wrestles with the enemy. Is he confounded at the view of indwelling corruption? God will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able to bear. Are kinsmen and friends alienated from him on account of his profession of godliness? What sustains him but this?–When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up. Does prayer seem unanswered? Wait on the Lord; be of good courage, and He shall strengthen thine heart. Do sorrows seem multiplied? All things work together for good to them that love God. Is his progress in the life of faith scarcely perceptible? Where God hath begun a good work, He will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. You see, then, that promises are mighty engines in the hands of Gods Spirit. It is by these souls are animated to prayer; it is by these they are prepared for warfare; it is by these they are warmed in love; it is by these they are cheered on in their way after holiness. (H. Melvill, B. D.)
Precious promises
What makes a promise precious?
1. The thing promised must be valuable.
2. He who promises must be truthful.
3. He who promises must be able to perform. (W. Lawson, D. D.)
The Divinely assimilating force of Divine promises
Christianity is a system of promises. Even its doctrines and precepts may be regarded as promises. These promises are exceedingly great in their nature, variety, and influences; they are exceedingly precious too;–precious essentially and relatively in themselves and in their bearings on man.
I. These promises tend to assimilate us to God by giving us an attractive view of His character. Two thoughts will illustrate this point:–
1. Mans moral character is formed on the principle of imitation. There are two wrong developments of this instinct.
(1) When it is directed to the natural peculiarities of others.
(2) When directed to the moral faults of others.
2. Mans imitation is ever directed to that which seems to him beautiful. He will not copy that which appears to him unamiable, unlovely, repulsive. If the Infinite appear to us supremely lovely, He will by the laws of our imitative nature mould us into His own image. Now His promises give us this attractive view of Him. A sincere promise reveals the authors disposition. If the promise is trifling where there are large resources, it indicates a niggardly soul, and the reverse. A sincere promise reveals the authors resources. If great things are promised, the possession of great things are implied. According to these criteria, what infinite kindness and inexhaustible resources do the promises of God reveal!
II. These promises tend to assimilate us to Him by bringing us into personal contact with His character. We must be with a being to become like him. Fellowship is absolutely indispensable. There is on the one hand a giving, and on the other a perpetual receiving. Thus the two are brought together. Both minds meet, as it were, in the promise,
III. These promises tend to assimilate us to Him by giving us a living interest in His character. (Homilist.)
The design of the promises of God
I. In the Divine nature are attributes properly incommunicable; such as cannot, in the nature of things, be imparted; such as cannot be even imitated by creatures. It is peculiar to Him to exist in and from Himself; while a creature is a dependent being, and ever must remain so. It is peculiar to Him to be from everlasting to everlasting. It is peculiar to Him to have supreme dominion. Absolute perfection, that which is liable to no injury, admits of no diminution, is capable of no advancement, is peculiar to Him. Finite cannot equal infinite. It is, then, in moral attributes that we are to look for this participation of the Divine nature; in those which, indeed, constitute the very glory of that nature; the others being adorable as they are exercised and employed by a perfect wisdom, rectitude, and love. But let it be here observed that the promise is not that we shall be raised into something like God; sonic mere imitation of what is morally perfect in Him. We are to be partakers of the Divine nature. There is to be a communication on the part of God, and a reception on our own, of those principles on which all that is pure and holy in God may be said to depend; a communication continued to us, on which the growth and permanency of those principles rest. The moral nature of God, thus to be participated by believers, may be summed up in the three terms.
1. Knowledge. The power of knowing is the property of spiritual beings. It is not merely to perceive in the low degree which belongs to irrational animals, but to apprehend, to remember, to compare, to infer, and from particular to bring out general truths, which are to be laid up in the mind for meditation or action. This knowledge is the knowledge of things as good or evil, as right or wrong, as tending or not tending to our own happiness, and that of the whole creation. Infinitely perfect is this knowledge in God. And by the indwelling of His teaching Spirit, opening these truths to our mind, and rendering us discerning to apply them, He makes us partake, in our degree, of His own knowledge, His infallible judgment of things. Then it is that we walk in the light. We find a sure way for our feet, and so are enabled tot escape the snares of death.
2. Holiness. This is essential to God. It is that principle in Him, whatever it may be, which has led Him to prescribe justice, mercy, and truth, and to prohibit their contraries under penalties so severe; that principle, which is more than a mere approval of the things which He enjoins; which makes Him love righteousness. The holiness of a creature as to actions is, conformity to the will of God, which is the visible declaration of His holy nature. That conformity implies justice, a rendering to all their due; a large duty, referring not only to man, but likewise to God, to whom are to be given the honour and worship He requires from us: perfect truth and sincerity in everything, so that all outward acts shall concur with the heart, and the heart with them; and the strict regulation of every temper and appetite, so that they may be kept within the bounds prescribed, beyond which they become impurity and sin. But there must be principle from which all this must flow, or it is only external and imitative; and that principle is found only in the new man, that which conies from this participation of the Divine nature.
3. But the Divine nature is love. Who can doubt this when he sees the happiness of the creatures so manifestly the end of their creation? when we can trace all misery to another source? when we see the mercies He mixes with His judgments, always bringing some good out of evil? when He spared not His own Son, but gave Him freely for us all?
II. We observe, that the value of the promises of the Gospel is specially displayed by their connection with this end. There are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises, that by these ye might be partakers of the Divine nature. To raise men to this state is matter of promise, and therefore of grace. We might have been left to the sin and degradation we had sought. And the promises thus given to us, all of them suppose the covenant of grace. And when we consider their great design to make us partakers of the Divine nature, how clearly and brightly does it display their value! They appear to us of unspeakable value; exceeding great and precious.
1. They are so in respect of the honour which this great attainment puts on man.
2. Consider this value in respect to interest. What is the real interest of man but the attainment of the favour and image of God?
3. Consider this value in.respect of peace. There can be no peace to the wicked. Every evil brings its own punishment with it in the disquietude which it occasions.
4. Consider this value in respect of usefulness. Knowledge is a powerful instrument of God when prompted by benevolence and sustained by consistency of character. And where there is this participation of the Divine nature, there we find all these elements of usefulness, knowledge, holiness, and love.
5. And lastly, consider this value in reference to hope. (R. Watson.)
That by these ye might he partakers of the Divine nature.—
Partakers of the Divine nature
The keynote of the passage is the word Divine, which occupies so conspicuous a place at the commencement and the close. To the momentous questions, What is the source and what the nature of true religion? the sum briefly is–It is a Divine life. Its source is traced to the Divine power of the Mediator, and on its features are stamped the impress of the Divine image.
1. Life and godliness is a comprehensive and practical description of true religion. Life alone, in Scripture, often describes the state of grace, and sums up all the blessings of salvation (1Jn 5:12; Act 5:20). Godliness, also, by itself, often denotes the whole of religion–the whole life of faith (1Ti 3:16; 1Ti 4:7). Employed together they modify each others meaning, and give completeness to the delineation of the Christian life. Life points out its inward source in the heart, godliness its outward manifestations in conduct and character. Be it ours to seek this life. Filled with it, it will show itself in the blossoms and fruits of godliness, And, let us not forget, that if there is no godliness of conduct or character, we want the only sure evidence that life from on high has descended into our souls.
2. Have I escaped from the corruption that is in the world? Worldly life apart from God, and opposed to God, is moral and spiritual death; in its most refined as well as in its grosser forms, in its intellectual as well as in its sensual enjoyments, it has the taint of corruption. Its maxims and morality are unsound. The tie that binds us to the world and its corruption is the corruption of our own hearts. That removed, the magnetic attraction of evil is broken. The world and the renewed nature have no affinity, but repel each other. Like the occupant of the diving-bell, breathing air which is replenished and purified by constant supplies from above, and which, by its elastic force, keeps out the water which presses on every side; so the Christian, breathing the vital air of a heaven-derived life, moves unharmed in the midst of the worlds corruption; surrounding him on every side, it cannot overwhelm.
3. Partakers of the Divine nature! At that momentous change, variously spoken of as a resurrection from the dead, as a new creation, as regeneration, there is communicated to the soul a Divine principle of life which, through grace, gradually transforms the whole man. Nothing less will do as a commencing point for the Christian life as a foundation on which to build a new and Godlike character. By Gods overruling providence and restraining grace and favourable circumstances the worst outbreaks of sin are often prevented, as by the physicians skill the maladies of an unsound constitution may be mitigated. But only by a renewal of the soul, by the communication of the life of God, can we obtain true spiritual health and vigour. Christ then becomes our life. We are renewed in the whole man after the image of God, and thus are made partakers of the Divine nature in the only sense possible for creatures. But the fellowship of the renewed soul with God is also embraced in that participation of the Divine nature of which the apostle speaks. Converse with God is the highest bliss of which we are capable. The life that has descended from God into our hearts rises up to Him again in desire and love, and the new nature in us subsists by communion with the source whence it is derived. (W. Wilson, M. A.)
The promises designed to make men holy
I. The scriptures often declare this to be a principal design of the Divine promises. Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God. Whatever is necessary to encourage, to cheer, to strengthen, to prompt in the course of holy obedience, is derived by constant appeals and illustrations from the promises of God.
II. We argue the same thing from the character of man as a moral being, and the purpose of God toward him. The great purpose of God toward man is to perfect his moral character through moral influence. But where is this influence furnished? in what are these motives presented, if not in the blessings promised as the reward of obedience? If God by these promises intended merely to comfort His people by quieting their fears and awakening their hopes, why are not His promises absolute and unconditional securities?
III. From the direct practical tendency of the promises of God. There is no higher evidence of the design to be answered by the appointments of God than the true tendency of such appointments.
1. Such is the tendency of the Divine promises, as they remove every obstacle to personal holiness. To rouse man to holy activity the promise of God is indispensable. You may show him an opening hell, but without a promise revealing a pardoning God and opening heaven he will never stir. With such promises all the hopelessness and despair of escaping the curse is taken away by the assurance of favour and reward to obedience. Without the promises there would remain also another obstacle of paralysing influence–the impracticability of obedience without the grace of God. But with the promise of a faithful God sounding in his ears, My grace is sufficient for thee, how will he rise, as it were, in the consciousness of that strength, which shall be perfected in his weakness, and enter the career of obedience with the inspiration of hope!
2. This tendency is apparent in the nature of the blessings promised. Whether we look at the general or specific nature of the Divine promises we see that they cannot become effectual as motives without producing holiness. What are the promises of God? Peace of conscience is promised. But who can think of escaping the reproaches of this inward monitor except by the practice of holiness? Is justification unto life promised? But who can be influenced by this blessing as a motive, and still wish to incur the guilt and the condemnation of sin? Is heaven promised? but what is there in heaven but an influence of transformation into the likeness of the God who reigns there?
3. The same tendency is apparent in the circumstances or mode of the Divine promises. Such is the manner of Gods promises as to secure to the utmost their full energy on the soul. While the holiness of man is their ultimate end, there is no sensibility or interest of man to which they do not appeal, and aim to render subservient to that end. They create no interference, but insure a perfect coincidence between mans temporal and eternal well-being.
4. The same tendency is apparent from the number and magnitude of the blessings promised.
Remarks:
1. We see the error of those who aim to derive comfort only from the Divine promises. To say nothing of the prostration of the Divine law thus involved, the notion is a direct perversion of the very promises of God, which are pleaded as its warrant. Where is the promise of life except to patient continuance in well-doing? Others there are who make the application of the promises to depend on the belief of their own personal interest in them, us if to believe ones self to be interested in the promises of God really made us so. This perversion is equally gross. The promises of God given to promote holiness, and made to nothing but holiness, do these secure an interest in their blessings to him who has no holiness? There is yet another error nearly allied to these, and still more common. There are those who, though they deny not that the only warrant for the hopes of the gospel is obedience to the gospel, yet seem practically to disregard the conviction. Their concern is to discover the evidence of an interest in the promises, rather than to create that evidence, by increasing their holiness.
2. How great are the obligations of the people of God to holy obedience! (N. W. Taylor, D. D.)
The influence of the promises of the gospel
Not that we can partake of the essence and nature of God, as some have blasphemously affirmed. For this would be for men to become gods, and to be advanced to the state and perfection of the Deity.
I. By way of internal efficacy and assistance. And this influence the promise of Gods Holy Spirit, and of His gracious help, hath upon the minds of men, inclining them to that which is good, and enabling them to do it. For the Holy Spirit is promised to us, in consideration and commiseration of that impotency which we have contracted.
II. By way of motive and argument, to encourage us to cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of flesh and spirit, and to perfect holiness in the fear of God. For–
1. A full pardon and indemnity for what is past is a mighty encouragement for us to return to our duty, and a forcible argument to keep us to it for the future.
2. The promise of Gods grace and Holy Spirit is likewise a very powerful encouragement to holiness, encouraging us hereto by this consideration, that we have so unerring a guide to counsel and direct us, so powerful an assistant to strengthen us with all might in the inner man.
3. The promise of eternal life and happiness, if duly considered, hath a mighty force in it, to take us off from the love and practice of sin, and to encourage our obedience and patient continuance in well-doing.
All that now remains is to make some useful reflections upon what hath been discoursed upon these two heads.
1. If we expect the benefits of these exceeding great and precious promises of the gospel, we must be careful to perform the conditions which are indispensably required on our parts.
2. From hence we learn that if the promises of the gospel have not this effect upon us, to make us partakers of a Divine nature, it is our own fault, and because we are wanting to ourselves.
3. If the promises of the Christian religion are apt in their own nature to work this great effect upon us, to make us like to God, to make us good, and just, and merciful, how doth this upbraid the degenerate state of the Christian world at this day, which does so abound in all kind of wickedness and impiety; so that we may cry out, upon reading the gospel: Either this is not the gospel which we read and the Christian religion which we profess, or we are no Christians. (Abp. Tillotson.)
Partakers of the Divine nature
Partakers of the Divine nature, which is to say, taking part in the Divine nature. Not simply like God, but in a way shareholders in Him; something, possibly, as the waves of the sea are partakers in the sea, something, it may be, as the leaves of a tree share in the life of the tree. We are not afraid of widening out the area of our humanity along the line of its upward frontier. Man differs in one very peculiar regard from the brute; not only in moving in a higher range of life and experience, but in not being tethered to any fixed condition. The brute is a brute, and always a brute. Improve your dog, and he will still be brutal; debase your dog, and he will still be brutal, and evince no symptoms of dropping to a lower grade of being. Once a dog, always a dog! On the contrary, there is a just sense in which you can say of humanity, that it is not so much a condition as it is a position of poise between two alternative conditions. It is like standing at the halfway point on the Gemmi Pass in Switzerland. You look down to the profound depths beneath you, or you turn and look up to the superb heights above you, but you are not going to stop there, nor to live there. It is not a place to remain, but a place from which to look off. You are either on your way down the pass to Leuker-Bad, or you are on your way up the pass to the Wild-strubel; it is merely a position of poise between two alternative destinations. Ye are partakers of the Divine nature. Our thought now is particularly up the pass, not down. There is more danger in a theology that differences man from God than in one which assimilates man to God. There is, as a rule, more quickening stimulus in the prospect of victory than there is in the danger of defeat. Few men ever become great through fear of remaining small. There is more incentive in trying to get to the top of the class than in trying to keep away from the bottom of it. If God can humanise the Divine to the point of its becoming man, as in the instance of Jesus, what is to hinder Him, in the exercise of the same omnipotence, from deifying man to the point of his becoming Divine? It is no farther from the bottom of the mountain to the top than it is from the top to the bottom. Now that, as we read the gospel, is exactly what the blessed Spirit is trying to do with us. God became like us that we might become like God. He is seeking to lead us back over the same road that tie came down. Partakers of the Divine nature. Now are we the sons of God. It is all in that word sons. There is community through identity. You cannot get sonship in any other way. A loyal son is governed by his father; but it is the best element of that loyalty, not that the son does what the father bids him do, or makes him do, but that the son has his fathers spirit so reproduced in himself, and so become a part of himself and he so a partaker in his fathers nature, that his one act is at the same instant both his act and his fathers act. And when we pray that God will control us by His Spirit, we certainly hardly expect that He is going to put His personality behind us, so as to push us onward; or put His personality in front of us, so as to hold us backward. We would rather mean, would we not, that as children of His, we are bound in the bundle of one life with Him, moving therefore at the impulse of energies that are ours without their ceasing to be His–somewhat, perhaps, as each separate storm-wave rolls in the expression of its own might, which is at the same time a part of the might of the sea; somewhat, perhaps, as each separate leaf or branch grows green in the expression of its own life, which is at the same time a part of the life of the vine. I in you, you in me. Frontier lines gone. One in each other, A single bundle of life, human or Divine, either or both; a shareholder in God; up the Gemmi Pass toward the indistinguishable summit. (C. H. Parkhurst, D. D.)
Partakers of the Divine nature
I. Look, first, at this lofty purpose which is here presented as being the very aim and end of Gods gift in the gospel. The human nature and the Divine are both kindred and contrary. There are no gods of the heathen so far away from their worshippers, and there are none so near them, as our God. The arched heaven, though high, is not inaccessible in its cloudless beauty, but it touches earth all round the horizon; and man is made in the image of God. True, that Divine nature of which the ideal man is the possessor has faded away from humanity. But still the human is kindred with the Divine. The tiniest spark of flame is of the same nature as those leaping, hydrogen spears of illuminated gas that spring hundreds of thousands of miles high in a second or two in the great central sun. But,that kindred, belonging to every soul of man, abject as well as loftiest, is not the partaking of which my text speaks, though it is the basis and possibility of it; for my text speaks of men as becoming partakers. What, then, is it? No mere absorption, as extravagant mystics have dreamed, into that Divine nature, as a drop goes back into the ocean and is lost. There will always be I and thou, or else there were no blessedness, nor worship, nor joy. We must so partake of the Divine nature as that the bounds between the bestowing God and the partaking man shall never be broken down. But that being presupposed, union as close as possible is the great hope that all Christian men and women ought consciously to cherish. Only mark, the beginning of the whole is the communication of a Divine life which is manifested mainly in what we call moral likeness. Partakers we shall be in the measure in which by our faith we have drawn from Him the pure and the hearty love of whatsoever things are fair and noble; the measure in which we love righteousness and hate iniquity. And then, remember also that this lofty purpose which is here set forth is a purpose growingly realised in man. The apostle puts great stress upon that. He is not talking about a being, but about a becoming. That is to say, God must ever be passing, moment by moment, into our hearts if there is to be anything godly there. Cut off the sunbeam from the sun and it dies, and the house is dark; cut off the life from the root and it withers, and the creature shrivels. The Christian man lives only by continual derivation of life from God; and for ever and ever the secret of his being and of his blessedness is not that he has become a possessor, but that he has become a partaker, of the Divine nature. By daily increase we shall be made capable of daily increase.
II. Look, next, at the costly and sufficient means employed for the realisation of this great purpose. Promises here must necessarily, I think, be employed in the sense of fulfilment of the promises. And so we might think of all the great and wondrous words which God has spoken in the past, promises of deliverance, of forgiveness, and the like; but I believe that by these exceeding great and precious promises is meant the unspeakable gift of Gods own Son, and the gift therein and thereafter of Gods life-giving Spirit. For is not this the meaning of the central fact of Christianity, the incarnation–that the Divine becomes partaker of the human in order that the human may partake of the Divine? Contrariety vanishes; the difference between the creature and the Creator disappears.
III. Let me say, lastly, that this great text adds a human accompaniment of that Divine gift, Having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. Corruption is initial destruction, though of course other forms of life may come from it; destruction is complete corruption. The word means both. A man either escapes from lust and evil, or he is destroyed by it. And the root of this rotting fungus is in lust, which word, of course, is used in a much wider meaning than the fleshly sense in which we employ it in modern times. It means desire of all sorts. The root of the worlds corruption is my own and my brothers unbridled and godless desires. So there are two states–a life plunged in putridity, or a heart touched with the Divine nature. Which is it to be? It cannot be both. A man that has got the life of God, in however feeble measure, in him, will flee away from this corruption like Lot out of Sodom. And how will he flee out of it? By subduing his own desires; not by changing position, not by shirking duty, not by withdrawing himself into unwholesome isolation from men and mens ways. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
Having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
Depravity
I. The source of a tremendous evil. Lust–of flesh, eye, and pride of life.
II. The nature of this evil.
1. Corruption of the physical nature–health damaged, disease engendered.
2. Corruption of the intellect judgment biased, mental powers enfeebled.
3. Corruption of the moral nature–heart polluted.
4. Corruption of the life–the corruption of the intellect and heart having its full development.
III. The escape from the evil.
1. From its tyrannical power and authority.
2. From its baneful effects, both in time and eternity. (Homilist.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 3. As his Divine power] His power, which no power can resist, because it is Divine-that which properly belongs to the infinite Godhead.
Hath given unto us] . Hath endowed us with the gifts; or, hath gifted us, as Dr. Macknight translates it, who observes that it refers to the gifts which the Holy Spirit communicated to the apostles, to enable them to bring men to life and godliness; which were, 1. A complete knowledge of the doctrines of the Gospel. 2. Power to preach and defend their doctrines in suitable language, which their adversaries were not able to gainsay or resist. 3. Wisdom to direct them how to behave in all cases, where and when to labour; and the matter suitable to all different cases, and every variety of persons. 4. Miraculous powers, so that on all proper and necessary occasions they could work miracles for the confirmation of their doctrines and mission.
By life and godliness we may understand, 1. a godly life; or, 2. eternal life as the end, and godliness the way to it; or, 3. what was essentially necessary for the present life, food, raiment, c., and what was requisite for the life to come. As they were in a suffering state, and most probably many of them strangers in those places, one can scarcely say that they had all things that pertained to life and yet so had God worked in their behalf, that none of them perished, either through lack of food or raiment. And as to what was necessary for godliness, they had that from the Gospel ministry, which it appears was still continued among them, and the gifts of the Holy Spirit which were not withdrawn; and what was farther necessary in the way of personal caution, comfort, and instruction, was supplied by means of these two epistles.
That hath called us to glory and virtue] To virtue or courage as the means; and glory-the kingdom of heaven, as the end. This is the way in which these words are commonly understood, and this sense is plain enough, but the construction is harsh. Others have translated , by his glorious benignity, a Hebraism for . and read the whole verse thus: God by his own power hath bestowed on us every thing necessary for a happy life and godliness, having called us to the knowledge of himself, by his own infinite goodness. It is certain that the word , which we translate virtue or courage, is used, 1Pet 2:9, to express the perfection of the Divine nature: That ye may show forth , the virtues or PERFECTIONS, of him who hath called you from darkness into his marvellous light.
But there is a various reading here which is of considerable importance, and which, from the authorities by which it is supported, appears to be genuine: , through the knowledge of him who hath called us by his own glory and power, or by his own glorious power. This is the reading of AC, several others; and, in effect, of the Coptic, Armenian, Syriac, AEthiopic, Vulgate, Cyril, Cassiodorus, &c.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
According as; this may refer either:
1. To what goes before: Grace and peace be multiplied unto you, & c., according as his divine power hath given unto us, &c.; and then in these words the apostle shows what reason there was to hope, that grace and peace should be multiplied to them, and perfected in them, viz. because God hath already given them all things pertaining to life and godliness; q.d. He that hath done thus much for you, will do more, and finish his work in you. Or:
2. To what follows; and then the Greek phrase rendered according as, is not a note of similitude, but of illation, and may be rendered, since, or seeing that, and so the words are not a part of the salutation, but the beginning of the body of the Epistle, and relate to 2Pe 1:5; Seeing that his Divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain, & c., add to your faith virtue, & c.; as God hath done his part, so do you yours in the diligent performance of what he hath enabled you unto.
Divine power may relate either to God, or rather to Christ, immediately going before; and then it tends to the confirming their hope of the multiplication of grace and peace to them, not only from God, but from Christ, in that they had already experienced his Divine power in giving them all things pertaining to life and godliness, i.e. whatever may be helpful to it, the Spirit, faith, repentance, &c., Joh 7:39; 2Co 4:6; 2Ti 2:25.
Unto life; either:
1. Spiritual life, and then godliness may be added by way of explication, that life which consists in godliness, or a godly life; or, by life may be meant the inward, permanent principle of spiritual acts, and the exercise of them may be called godliness, as the perfection of that principle is called glory. Or:
2. Eternal life, to which we attain through godliness, as the way; and then likewise they are understood distinctly, life as the end, and godliness as the means; and so life in this verse is the same as peace in the former, and godliness the same as grace.
To glory and virtue: according to our translation, glory may be the same as life before, and virtue the same with godliness; and then the words set forth the end of Gods calling us, viz. unto glory or life hereafter, as well as virtue or godliness now. But the Greek preposition is no where (as some observe) in the New Testament found to signify to; for in Rom 6:4 (which some allege) it is best rendered by, glory being there put for Gods power; and therefore our margin here reads it by glory and virtue; which may either be, by an hendiadis, for glorious virtue, taking virtue for power, that glorious power of God which is put forth in calling us, Eph 1:18,19, or his goodness and mercy which appear in the same calling, in which sense the word may be understood; see Tit 3:4,5; 1Pe 2:9; or, (which comes to the same), glory being often taken for powe Joh 2:11, by glory and virtue may be meant Gods powe and goodness, or mercy.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
3. According as, c.Seeingthat [ALFORD]. “AsHe hath given us ALLthings (needful) for life and godliness, (so) do you give us ALLdiligence,” &c. The oil and flame are given wholly of graceby God, and “taken” by believers: their part henceforth isto “trim their lamps” (compare 2Pe 1:32Pe 1:4; 2Pe 1:5,c.).
life and godlinessSpirituallife must exist first before there can be true godliness.Knowledge of God experimentally is the first step to life(Joh 17:3). The child must havevital breath. first, and then cry to, and walk in the ways of, hisfather. It is not by godliness that we obtain life, butby life, godliness. To life stands opposed corruptionto godliness, lust (2Pe 1:4).
called us (2Pe1:10); “calling” (1Pe2:9).
to glory and virtuerather,”through (His) glory.” Thus English Versionreads as one oldest manuscript. But other oldest manuscripts andVulgate read, “By His own (peculiar) glory andvirtue”; being the explanation of “His divine power”;glory and moral excellency (the same attribute is givento God in 1Pe 2:9, “praises,”literally, “virtues”) characterize God’s “power.””Virtue,” the standing word in heathen ethics, is foundonly once in Paul (Php 4:8), andin Peter in a distinct sense from its classic usage; it (in theheathen sense) is a term too low and earthly for expressing the giftsof the Spirit [TRENCH,Greek Synonyms of the New Testament].
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
According as his divine power,…. Meaning either the power of God the Father, to whom belong eternal power and Godhead; and he is sometimes called by the name of power itself; see Mt 26:64 being all powerful and mighty; or rather the power of Christ, since he is the next and immediate antecedent to this relative; and who, as he has the fulness of the Godhead in him, is almighty, and can do all things; and is “El-shaddai”, God all-sufficient, and can communicate all things whatsoever he pleases, and does, as follows: for he
hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness; referring not so much to a temporal life, though he gives that and preserves it, and furnishes with all the mercies and comforts of it; and which come to us, from him, in a covenant way, as his left hand blessings, and in great love; but rather a spiritual life, which he is the author and maintainer of, all the joys, pleasures, blessings, and supports of it, being given by him; as also eternal life, for that, and everything appertaining to it, are from him; he gives a meetness for it, which is his own grace, and a right unto it, which is his own righteousness; and he has power to give that itself to as many as the Father has given him, and he does give it to them; and likewise all things belonging to “godliness”, or internal religion; and which is the means of eternal life, and leads on to it, and is connected with it, and has the promise both of this life, and of that which is to come; and everything relating to it, or is in it, or it consists of, is from Christ: the internal graces of the Spirit, as faith, hope, and love, which, when in exercise, are the principal parts of powerful godliness, are the gifts of Christ, are received out of his fulness, and of which he is the author and finisher; and he is the donor of all the fresh supplies of grace to maintain the inward power of religion, and to assist in the external exercise of it; all which things are given
through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue. The call here spoken of is not a bare outward call, by the ministry of the word, but an internal, special, and powerful one, which springs from the grace, and is according to the purpose of God, and is inseparably connected with justification and glorification; and is either of God the Father, who, as the God of all grace, calls to eternal glory by Christ; or rather of Christ himself, who calls by his Spirit and grace; and hence the saints are sometimes styled, the called of Jesus Christ, Ro 1:6 what they are called unto by him is, “glory and virtue”; by the former may be meant, the glorious state of the saints in the other world, and so answers to “life”, eternal life, in the preceding clause; and by the latter, grace, and the spiritual blessings of grace here, and which answers to “godliness” in the said clause; for the saints are called both to grace and glory, and to the one, in order to the other. Some render it, “by glory and virtue”; and some copies, as the Alexandrian and others, and so the Vulgate Latin version, read, “by his own glory and virtue”; that is, by his glorious power, which makes the call as effectual, and is as illustrious a specimen of the glory of his power, as was the call of Lazarus out of the grave; unless the Gospel should rather be intended by glory and virtue, which is glorious in itself, and the power of God unto salvation, and is the means by which persons are called to the communion of Christ, and the obtaining of his glory: so then this phrase, “him that hath called us to glory and virtue”, is a periphrasis of Christ, through a “knowledge” of whom, and which is not notional and speculative, but spiritual, experimental, fiducial, and practical, or along with such knowledge all the above things are given; for as God, in giving Christ, gives all things along with him, so the Spirit of Christ, which is a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him, when he makes him known in the glory of his person, grace, and righteousness, also makes known the several things which are freely given of God and Christ: and this is what, among other things, makes the knowledge of Christ preferable to all other knowledge, or anything else.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Seeing that his divine power hath granted unto us ( ). Genitive absolute with the causal particle and the perfect middle participle of , old verb, to bestow (, gift), usually middle as here, in N.T. elsewhere only Mr 15:45. refers to Christ, who has “divine power” ( ), since he is (1:1). (from ) is an old adjective in N.T. here and verse 4 only, except Ac 17:29, where Paul uses for deity, thus adapting his language to his audience as the papyri and inscriptions show. The use of with an imperial connotation is very common in the papyri and the inscriptions. Deissmann (Bible Studies, pp. 360-368) has shown the singular linguistic likeness between 2Pe 1:3-11 and a remarkable inscription of the inhabitants of Stratonicea in Caria to Zeus Panhemerios and Hecate dated A.D. 22 (in full in C I H ii No. 2715 a b). One of the likenesses is the use of . Peter may have read this inscription (cf. Paul in Athens) or he may have used “the familiar forms and formulae of religious emotion” (Deissmann), “the official liturgical language of Asia Minor.” Peter is fond of in this Epistle, and the of Christ “is the sword which St. Peter holds over the head of the False Teachers” (Bigg).
All things that pertain unto life and godliness ( ). “All the things for life and godliness.” The new life in Christ who is the mystery of godliness (1Ti 3:16). with its cognates (, , ) occurs only in this Epistle, Acts, and the Pastoral Epistles (from , well, and , to worship).
Of him that called us ( ). Genitive of the articular first aorist active participle of . Christ called Peter and all other Christians.
By his own glory and virtue ( ). So B K L, but Aleph A C P read (either instrumental case “by” or dative “to”). Peter is fond of (own, 1Pet 3:1; 1Pet 3:5; 2Pet 2:16; 2Pet 2:22, etc.). “Glory” here is the manifestation of the Divine Character in Christ. For see on 1Pe 2:9 and Phil 4:8; 2Pet 1:5.
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
Hath granted [] . This is the only word which Peter and Mark alone have in common in the New Testament; a somewhat singular fact in view of their intimate relations, and of the impress of Peter upon Mark’s gospel : yet it tells very strongly against the theory of a forgery of this epistle. The word is stronger than the simple didwmi, to give, meaning to grant or bestow as a gift. Compare Mr 14:45.
Godliness [] . Used only by Peter (Act 3:12), and in the Pastoral Epistles. It is from euj, well, and sebomai, to worship, so that the radical idea is worship rightly directed. Worship, however, is to be understood in it etymological sense, worth – ship, or reverence paid to worth, whether in God or man. So Wycliffe’s rendering of Mt 6:2, “that they be worshipped of men;” and “worship thy father and thy mother,” Mt 19:19. In classical Greek the word is not confined to religion, but means also piety in the fulfilment of human relations, like the Latin pietas. Even in classical Greek, however, it is a standing word for piety in the religious sense, showing itself in right reverence; and is opposed to dussebeia, ungodliness, and ajnosiothv, profaneness. “The recognition of dependence upon the gods, the confession of human dependence, the tribute of homage which man renders in the certainty that he needs their favor – all this is eujsebeia, manifest in conduct and conversation, in sacrifice and prayer.” (Nagelsbach, cited by Cremer). This definition may be almost literally transferred to the Christian word. It embraces the confession of the one living and true God, and life corresponding to this knowledge. See on ver. 2.
Called [] . Also used of the divine invitation, 1Pe 2:9, 21; 1Pe 3:9; 1Pe 5:10.
To glory and virtue [ ] . Lit., and properly, by his own glory and virtue, though some read dia doxhv kai ajrethv, through glory and virtue. Rev. adopts the former. The meaning is much the same in either case.
His own [] . Of frequent occurrence in Peter, and not necessarily with an emphatic force, since the adjective is sometimes used merely as a possessive pronoun, and mostly so in Peter (1Pe 3:1, 5; 2Pe 2:16, 22, etc.).
Virtue. See on 1Pe 2:9. Used by Peter only, with the exception of Phi 4:8. The original classical sense of the word had no special moral import, but denoted excellence of any kind – bravery, rank, nobility; also, excellence of land, animals, things, classes of persons. Paul seems to avoid the term, using it only once.
On glory and virtue Bengel says, “the former indicates his natural, the latter his moral, attributes.”
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
1) “According to His divine power.” (Greek hos) as, or just as the (Greek theias) divine, infinite or unlimited (dunameos) power or dynamics (of God) Mar 2:10; Mat 28:18; Joh 1:12; Rom 1:16.
2) “Has given unto us all things. To think that the eternal, omnipotent, (all powerful) God has, through Jesus Christ, given, (Greek dedoremenes) doled out to us, “of His own accord,” (ta panta) all things.
3) “That pertain to life and godliness.” (Greek pros) inclining or that point “to or toward” (Greek zoen kai eusebeian) life and Godly living or conduct, Joh 17:8-17; Act 20:19-20.
4) “Through the knowledge of Him.” (Greek epignoseos) by means of overshadowing knowledge ever present, “of the one” Jesus Christ. Php_3:9-10.
5) “That hath called us to glory and virtue.” (Greek kalesantos) having called us (Greek hemas idia dokse) to His own (kind) of glory and (Gr. arete) standard of virtue or purity – what an invitation! What a Call! to follow. What Grace! to be with, and glorified with Jesus. Rom 8:17-18.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
3. According as his divine power. He refers to the infinite goodness of God which they had already experienced, that they might more fully understand it for the future. For he continues the course of his benevolence perpetually to the end, except when we ourselves break it off by our unbelief; for he possesses exhaustless power and an equal will to do good. Hence the Apostle justly animates the faithful to entertain good hope by the consideration of the former benefits of God. (146) For the same purpose is the amplification which he makes; for he might have spoken more simply, “As he has freely given us all things.” But by mentioning “divine power,” he rises higher, that is, that God has copiously unfolded the immense resources of his power. But the latter clause may be referred to Christ as well as to the Father, but both are suitable. It may however be more fitly applied to Christ, as though he had said, that the grace which is conveyed to us by him, is an evidence of divinity, because it could not have done by humanity.
That pertain to life and godliness, or, as to life and godliness. Some think that the present life is meant here, as godliness follows as the more excellent gift; as though by those two words Peter intended to prove how beneficent and bountiful God is towards the faithful, that he brought them to light, that he supplies them with all things necessary for the preservation of an earthly life, and that he has also renewed them to a spiritual life by adorning them with godliness. But this distinction is foreign to the mind of Peter, for as soon as he mentioned life, he immediately added godliness, which is as it were its soul; for God then truly gives us life, when he renews us unto the obedience of righteousness. So Peter does not speak here of the natural gifts of God, but only mentions those things which he confers peculiarly on his own elect above the common order of nature. (147)
That we are born men, that we are endued with reason and knowledge, that our life is supplied with necessary support, — all this is indeed from God. As however men, being perverted in their minds and ungrateful, do not regard these various things, which are called the gifts of nature, among God’s benefits, the common condition of human life is not here referred to, but the peculiar endowments of the new and Spiritual life, which derive their origin from the kingdom of Christ. But since everything necessary for godliness and salvation is to be deemed among the supernatural gifts of God, let men learn to arrogate nothing to themselves, but humbly ask of God whatever they see they are wanting in, and to ascribe to him whatever good they may have. For Peter here, by attributing the whole of godliness, and all helps to salvation, to the divine power of Christ, takes them away from the common nature of men, so that he leaves to us not even the least particle of any virtue or merit.
Through the knowledge of him. He now describes the manner in which God makes us partakers of so great blessings, even by making himself known to us by the gospel. For the knowledge of God is the beginning of life and the first entrance into godliness. In short, spiritual gifts cannot be given for salvation, until, being illuminated by the doctrine of the gospel, we are led to know God. But he makes God the author of this knowledge, because we never go to him except when called. Hence the effectual cause of faith is not the perspicacity of our mind, but the calling of God. And he speaks not of the outward calling only, which is in itself ineffectual; but of the inward calling, effected by the hidden power of the Spirit when God not only sounds in our ears by the voice of man, but draws inwardly our hearts to himself by his own Spirit.
To glory and virtue, or, by his own glory and power. Some copies have ἰδία δόξὟ, “by his own glory,” and it is so rendered by the old interpreter; and this reading I prefer, because the sentence seems thus to flow better For it was Peter’s object expressly to ascribe the whole praise of our salvation to God, so that we may know that we owe every thing to him. And this is more clearly expressed by these words, — that he has called us by his own glory and power. However, the other reading, though more obscure, tends to the same thing; for he teaches us, that we are covered with shame, and are wholly vicious, until God clothes us with glory and adorns us with virtue. He further intimates, that the effect of calling in the elect, is to restore to them the glorious image of God, and to renew them in holiness and righteousness.
(146) The connection here is variously regarded. Our version and Calvin seem to connect this verse with the foregoing, in this sense, that the Apostle prays for the increase of grace and peace from the consideration of what God had already done, or in conformity with his previous benefits. Others, perhaps more correctly, view this verse as connected with the 5, and render ὡς, “Since,” and the beginning of the 5 verse, “Do ye also for this reason, giving all diligence, add,” etc.; that is, “Since God has done so great things for you, ye also for this reason ought to be diligent in adding to your faith virtue, etc.” But ὡς and καὶ may be rendered as and so. See Act 7:51. “As his divine power… so for this reason, giving all diligence, add,” etc. — Ed.
(147) The order is according to what is common in Scripture; the chief thing is mentioned first, and then that which leads to it. — Ed.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
II. THE CHRISTIANS GROWTH, 2Pe. 1:3-21
1. Exhortations to Grow in the Full Knowledge of Christ 1:315
2Pe. 1:3 seeing that his divine power hath granted unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that called us by his own glory and virtue;
Expanded Translation
We realize[46] that his (Gods) divine power and ability has given (granted, bestowed) to us all the things which pertain to the (spiritual) life and godliness (piety, true religion), through (by means of) the exact and full knowledge of the one (Christ) who called us by that glory and moral goodness which was uniquely his own.
[46] hos with the genitive absolute presents the matter spoken of (Thayer) and in this case a truth is stated, hence an editorial we seems appropriate.
_______________________
seeing that his divine power hath granted unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness
Cp. Jas. 1:17-18, 2Ti. 3:16-17. The word divine (theios), from theos, (God) is used here of Gods power, and in 2Pe. 1:4 of his nature; in both instances it refers to that which proceeds or emanates from God. The life here is the spiritual lifethe life of Christian conduct. Godliness (eusebeia) is a compound word made up of eu, well; good, and sebomai, to be devout or religious.
It denotes that piety which, characterized by a Godward attitude, does that which is pleasing unto him.
To live the Christ-like life, our Father has provided every needall things. It is well to remember that God has given us allmankind cannot improve upon it, nor can he rightfully add any more necessary things. What he supplies for the spiritual life cannot be improved upon.
through the knowledge
(epignosis, see comments, 2Pe. 1:2.)
of him that called us by his own glory and virtue
When the real knowledge of Christ is ours, and when it is carefully preserved and cultivated, the blessings which enable us to live a full, rich and prosperous Christian life shall be ours!
Christ called us by his own (idios) glory and virtuenot ours! But by living in close union with him, we shall be sharers in the divine nature (2Pe. 1:4).
Notice that the grace and peace Peter wishes upon his readers is granted through this type of knowledge concerning God and Christ, Friend, do you know your Saviour, or are you only casually acquainted? This verse should not only cause the Christian to see his need of studying the Scriptures, but of cultivating his friendship with this Friend of friends in every way.
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
(3) According as.Better, seeing that This must not be made to depend on 2Pe. 1:2. In the canonical Epistles the address does not go beyond the blessing. Galatians is the only exception; there a relative clause is added to the blessing; but this is solemnly brought to a close with a doxology, so that the exception is one that almost proves the rule. In Hebrews, James, 1 and 3 John, there is no opening blessing; the remark holds good of all the rest. 2Pe. 1:3-4 are a brief introduction to the direct exhortations contained 2Pe. 1:5-11. The eagerness with which the writer goes direct to his subject is characteristic of St. Peters temper.
His divine power.The pronoun refers to Jesus our Lord. The adjective occurs in the New Testament in these two verses (3 and 4) only; elsewhere we have the genitive case, of God, of the Lord, of the Father, and the like.
All things that pertain unto.All that are necessary for the attainment of. He does not give life and godliness in maturity, but supplies us with the means of winning them for ourselves. All is emphatic; nothing that is requisite is grudged us, and nothing is our own, it is all the gift of God.
Godliness.The Greek word occurs Act. 3:12, in a speech of St. Peter, and four times in this Epistle; elsewhere only in those to Timothy and Titus. It belongs to the phraseology of the later books of the New Testament. Godliness is the realisation of Gods abiding presence, the fruits of which are reverence and trust: Thou God seest me; I have set God always before me, therefore I cannot fall. It is introduced here, perhaps, in opposition to the godlessness and irreverence of the false teachers. (Comp. 2Ti. 3:5.)
Through the knowledge.Through learning to know God as One who has called us to salvation. (Comp. 2Pe. 1:2.)
To glory and virtue.Rather, by glory and virtue; or perhaps, by His own glory and virtue, according to another reading. To cannot be correct, whichever of the various readings is the right one, Tyndale, Cranmer, and Rheims have by; the error comes from Geneva, which has unto. Glory points to the majesty of God, virtue to His activity. Virtue as applied to God is unusual, but occurs 1Pe. 2:9 (see Note there), a coincidence to be noted. The word is rendered there praises, but virtues is given in the margin. The whole verse is strikingly parallel to this one, though very differently expressed.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
(3-11) Exhortation to progress in spiritual graces in order to win eternal life at Christs coming. God has given us all we need for salvation; let us profit by it, and show ourselves worthy of it.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
2. God’s great gifts and promises call for rich Christian culture and graces, 2Pe 1:3-9.
3. A proper punctuation commences here a new sentence, which extends through 2Pe 1:7.
According as Rather, Forasmuch as; laying the foundation for the exhortation in 2Pe 1:5-7.
Given us all things Whatever pertains to the work of salvation and the life of holiness is God’s gracious gift, originating in, and bestowed by, him. The all things is, in the Greek, emphatic, and must be taken in the broadest sense, as including whatever is in any way connected with raising us up from the death and ruin of sin to the fulness of the glory of heaven. They are brought to us by his divine power; probably referring less to its operation in their provision, as in the incarnation and resurrection, than to it in the actual gift of salvation.
Life Spiritual life.
Godliness Reverential piety toward God. The two words express inward and outward holiness.
Through the knowledge No mystical rites or superstitious observances can obtain the least of the all things: the declared and successful instrument is knowledge, the coming to a full knowledge. Grace and power are the supernatural essentials to holiness, but they work through the truth received, and in accord with our rational nature.
Him that hath called us God, yet, nevertheless, our God and Saviour Jesus Christ, as in 2Pe 1:1, and especially because 2Pe 1:8 defines the knowledge as of our Lord Jesus Christ.
To glory and virtue The best texts agree in reading, By his own glory and virtue. Glory belongs to his Godhead: virtue is, as in the Greek of 1Pe 2:9, his moral excellence and perfections. By all the attributes of his nature he called us to the blessings of the gospel.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
‘Seeing that his divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and virtue (vibrant excellence),’
The divine power of God (2Pe 1:3) and the power and coming of Christ (2Pe 1:16-18; 2Pe 3:4; 2Pe 3:12) are the central thought of the letter. It is this that has changed the history of the world, will issue in its end (2Pe 3:7), and will establish a new heavens and a new earth in which dwells righteousness (2Pe 3:13), in process of which He will transform His people Who respond to His promises (2Pe 1:4) so that they may have rich entrance into His eternal kingdom (2Pe 1:11).
The grace and provision of wellbeing by God is therefore to be seen as multiplied towards us in that by His divine power He has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness through Christ, all of which results from our knowledge of Him in His glory and excellence. In other words, by His divine power and through our spiritual knowledge of Him, He has empowered us so that we might live a true spiritual life, the fruit of the ‘eternal life’ that He has given us, and might reveal eusebeia, the genuine piety and godliness that results from an intimate knowledge of Christ.
‘Through the knowledge of Him.’ This knowledge is all important in combating the quasi-knowledge of the false prophets. It is because His people know their God and Saviour Jesus Christ in all His glory, especially as revealed in his previous letter, that the lesser lords and saviours of these quasi-prophets falls into insignificance. And indeed Peter will emphasise some of this glory later in the chapter (2Pe 1:16-18). It is important that they have a full comprehension of His glory. And this all comes about through our ‘spiritual knowledge’ of the One Who has called us by His own glory and vibrant excellence. As the Glorious One he has called us to participate in His glory, and as the Righteous One He has called us to be righteous as He is righteous.
The word for ‘virtue’ does not just mean pure goodness. It contains within it the thought of actively powerful goodness. It is a word which denotes a good quality or excellence of any kind, and in the ancient classics it is used to denote manliness, vigour, courage, valour, fortitude. So the word includes the idea of energy or power of some kind, in contrast with what we commonly understand by virtue, and should, therefore, be allied to the energy or efficiency which God has displayed in the work of our salvation. We may see it as paralleling the ‘active righteousness’ spoken of by Isaiah in parallel with the idea of ‘salvation/deliverance’.
Peter’s continuing stress on ‘knowledge’ (epignosis – see 2Pe 1:2-3; 2Pe 1:8 ; 2Pe 2:20; gnosis – 2Pe 2:5-6; 2Pe 3:18) is probably in order to stress the superiority of the Christian’s true knowledge of the divine, which is firmly related to history, in direct contrast with the ‘gnosis’ of the far fetched fantasies of the then current Hellenistic religions.
These ideas of glory and moral and powerful excellence will be reflected throughout the letter. Thus:
In Christ we become partakers of the divine nature (Christ in you the hope of glory) — and having escaped moral corruption we are to build up moral excellence, through our knowing of Him in His glory and excellence (2Pe 1:4 a; 2Pe 1:4-11).
He has already given a foretaste of His glory and excellence, for it was revealed to His Apostles, and it was also witnessed to in true prophecy (2Pe 1:12-21) — and this is in contrast with the false prophecy which introduces only degradation, corruption and decay (2Pe 2:1-22).
The false prophets mock at the idea that our Lord and Saviour has truly broken into history (2Pe 3:1-4) — and will therefore be caught up in the final conflagration which will burn up all that is degraded and corrupt (2Pe 3:5-10), but we in contrast are to live in the light of that day, looking for a new Heaven and a new earth which will replace that degradation and corruption, and being built up in grace and in the knowledge of Him, with the result that we will share in the final glory which will be His (2Pe 3:11-18).
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
God Has Made Full Provision For Us To Life A Godly Life ( 2Pe 1:3-4 ).
Having greeted the recipients, and having reminded them that they had a like precious faith with all God’s people, Peter now reminds them of the huge benefits that that faith has brought them. They should recognise that the divine power of their Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ has granted to them all that is necessary for life and godliness through their knowledge of Him, as the One Who has called them by His own glory and excellence.
In other words, says Peter, the spiritual knowledge of our Lord, Jesus Christ, provided to us by His divine power, is our all sufficiency in all things. In knowing Him we have all that we can possibly need in order to live out our lives in accordance with His good pleasure (Php 2:13). For through Him God has ‘shined in our hearts giving us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ’ (2Co 4:6; compare 1Pe 2:9).
Thus in Paul’s words our desire must be, that more and more ‘we might know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable to His death, if by any means we might attain to the resurrection from among the dead’ (Php 3:10-11). And the result will be that we will be ‘strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man’, with Christ dwelling in our hearts by faith (Eph 3:16-17), so that being rooted and grounded in His love which passes all knowledge, we will be filled with all the fullness of God (Eph 3:17-19).
The comprehension of these glorious truths is important for what follows. For it is this very knowledge that they have of their Lord, Jesus Christ, in all His glory, that will reveal the folly of the experiences being offered by the false prophets in chapter 2. Indeed it is that knowledge from which they have turned away (2Pe 2:20-22).
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
We Partake of His Divine Nature through the Promises of His Word Peter will emphasize the Father’s role in our election (2Pe 1:3-4) by first explaining how His divine power has given unto us all things that pertain to life and godliness (2Pe 1:3), by which He has given unto us great and precious promises (2Pe 1:4).
2Pe 1:3 According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue:
2Pe 1:3
Scripture References – Note similar verses:
Eph 3:16, “That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man;”
Eph 3:20, “Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us,”
2Pe 1:3 “hath given unto us” Comments – Notice that the verb is past tense in the Greek text, which is called the perfect tense. Dana and Mantey say, “The perfect is the tense of complete actionThat is, it views action as a finished product.” [79] If this is the case, then 2Pe 1:3 tells us God has already made provision for everything we need in our lives regarding “life and godliness.” We must then ask the question, “What is my role in receiving and walking in this abundant life and godly character?” The message in 2 Peter is designed to answer this question for us.
[79] H. E. Dana and Julius R. Mantey, A Manual Grammar of the Greek New Testament (London: The MacMillan Company, c1927, 1955), 200.
2Pe 1:3 “all things that pertain unto life and godliness” Comments – God has provided everything we need to live an abundant life with a godly character. This abundant life includes peace of mind, health, financial prosperity, and wisdom in our relationships with others. Abundant life encompasses every area of our lives. These things become a part of our lives through the growing knowledge of God’s Word.
2Pe 1:3 “through the knowledge of Him” – Comments – We must get to know God the Father and Jesus Christ His son through God’s Word and through fellowship with Him in prayer. This epistle closes by exhorting us to grow in this grace and knowledge in order not to fall (2Pe 3:17-18).
2Pe 3:17-18, “Ye therefore, beloved, seeing ye know these things before, beware lest ye also, being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own stedfastness. But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and for ever. Amen.”
There is a place and a season in a believer’s life for miracles and deliverance; but we must not neglect the important aspect of daily Christian growth and development through the knowledge of God and His ways, which come through His Word. In other words, a miracle does not make us partakers of His divine nature, as we note how the children of Israel were delivered from Egyptian bondage, and turned to worship a golden calf in the wilderness. Second Peter will say that through Christian growth we are brought into conformity with his divine nature. This maturity and strength of divine character is what gives us the wisdom to escape from the corruption the world system that binds the unrepentant world. We may have been marvelously set free from bondages of sin at conversion; but it is by applying God’s Word to our lives that we are able to stay free and avoid being entangled again, as noted in 2Pe 2:20 (see also Gal 5:1, 2Ti 2:4).
2Pe 2:20, “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.”
Gal 5:1, “Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.”
2Ti 2:4, “No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life; that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier.”
2Pe 1:3 “that hath called us”- Comments – God has a destiny for each one of us. He had called each one of us and has a plan for our lives. It is now up to us to appropriate His heavenly provision that is now available to every human being through faith in Christ Jesus in order to accomplish this plan for our individual lives.
2Pe 1:3 “to glory and virtue” Comments – The phrase “to glory and virtue” in 2Pe 1:3 has some textual variations in the many ancient Greek manuscripts.
1. Instrumental Case – Some ancient manuscripts read (by his own glory and goodness) ( ASV, NIV), making the words instrumental of means as its case (A. T. Robertson). [80] Thus, we understand that by the means of His divine character He has been able to call us and elect us.
[80] A. T. Robertson, A Grammar of the Greek New Testament in the Light of Historical Research (New York: Hodder and Stoughton, 1914), 532-533.
2. Dative Case Many translations translate the phrase using the dative case, “ to his own glory and excellence” ( RSV, KJV). With the dative we understand this phrase to mean that the Father has called us to partake of His glory and same virtuous character.
3. Genitive Case – Some ancient manuscripts read (through glory and worthiness) ( YLT), making the words genitive in case. With this reading we understand the phrase to say that it is by, or through, His glory and virtue He has chosen to give us all things that pertain to life and godliness. Edwin A. Blum renders it to mean that God is revealing His “spendor” ( ) and “moral excellence” ( ) through the work of redemption for mankind. [81]
[81] Edwin A. Blum, 2 Peter, in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, vol. 12, eds. Frank E. Gaebelien, J. D. Douglas, and Dick Polcyn (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Pub. House, 1976-1992), in Zondervan Reference Software, v. 2.8 [CD-ROM] (Grand Rapids, MI: The Zondervan Corp., 1989-2001), “Introduction.”
This is the reason for so many variations in leading modern English translations listed below:
ASV, “by his own glory and virtue”
KJV, “ to glory and virtue”
NIV, “ by his own glory and goodness”
RSV, “to his own glory and excellence”
YLT, “through glory and worthiness”
Peter refers to this glory in his earlier epistle as “His marvelous light” (1Pe 2:9).
1Pe 2:9, “But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light :”
We find a similar statement in 2Ti 1:9, “called usaccording to his own purpose and grace.”
2Ti 1:9, “Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace , which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began,”
Daniel Whitby says the word “glory” can refer to the manifest presence of the Holy Ghost, and interprets the word “virtue” as the miracle working “power” of God in confirming His Word preached. [82] This phrase then becomes similar to Paul’s statement in 1Co 2:4, “And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power. ”
[82] Daniel Whitby, A Commentary on the Gospels and Epistles, in A Critical Commentary and Paraphrase on Old and New Testament and the Apocrypha, vol. 4, ed. R. J. Pitman (Philadelphia: Cary and Hart, 1845), 1973; Deissmann, in The Century Bible.
A more practical comment from W. H. Bennett says the word “virtue” is used in the LXX “to translate the words meaning ‘glory’ and ‘praiseworthiness’.” He suggests that Peter is using “glory and virtue” as synonyms. [83]
[83] W. H. Bennett, ed. The General Epistles: James, Peter, John and Jude, in The Century Bible: A Modern Commentary, vol. 17, ed. W. F. Adeney (London: The Caxton Publishing Company, n.d.), 260.
2Pe 1:3 Comments 2Pe 1:3 tells us that God has supplied everything we need to live an abundant life through our knowledge and understanding of His Word. We know from Rom 8:28-30 that God has predestined us to be conformed to the image of His Son. 2Pe 1:3 makes a similar statement, “through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue,” as a way of placing emphasis on the process of transformation into the image of His Son Jesus Christ. This transformation takes place as we partake of His Word.
2Pe 1:4 Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
2Pe 1:4
2Pe 1:4 “are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises” Comments – The idea of God the Father providing us promises reflects His active, rather than passive, role of divine election in our lives. In other words, He planned all things and made provision for us before the foundation of the world, so that we could be conformed to His divine nature. In contrast, 1 John uses the phrase “Word of life” to reflect the role of Jesus Christ in our redemption. It is also important to note that God’s grace and peace are sustained in our lives as we appropriate our faith in His Word, which contain these “great and precious promises.” Our efforts are amplified in the following verses 2Pe 1:5-7, which explain how we are to actively add to our faith God’s divine nature as we grow in the knowledge and wisdom of God’s ways.
2Pe 1:4 “that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature” Comments – The phrase “divine nature” means taking on a God-like or Christ-like personality and character. Note that we can be saved and still not have these characteristics in our lives. This is why the verb is in the subjunctive mood, the mood of potentiality, rather than certainty. In other words, we now have the potential to partake of God’s divine nature. Now, through God’s promises, i.e., His Word, we can renew our mind and present our bodies to serve God so that we can become more and more like Him. Then the three-fold man can become like our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. It is a choice that we must make on a daily basis.
According to the Scriptures, we are created in God’s image, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.” (Gen 1:27) We reflect divinity in our three-fold make-up of spirit, soul and body (Deu 6:4-5). It is for this reason that the Scriptures call us “gods,” “I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High.” (Psa 82:6, Joh 10:34-35) Since the time of the Fall, the depraved nature of mankind has separated him from God. Therefore, Jesus redeemed mankind, so that his spirit can be reborn, which then allows him to go through the process of sanctification, that allows him again to partake of the divine nature, which was God’s original intent and purpose in creating man.
We initially of God’s divine nature in our spirit when we are born again into God’s likeness. But our soul and body have to develop into God’s divine nature or likeness. By partaking of God’s divine nature, it means that we become like Jesus, growing into godly love (2Pe 1:7). Thus, 2Pe 1:5-7 will describe the process of partaking of His divine nature.
Scripture References – Note other Scriptures that reflect the believer’s need to partake of God’s divine nature:
Eph 4:24, “And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.”
Heb 12:10, “For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness.”
2Pe 1:4 “having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust” Comments – The word “corruption” means, “ruin, destruction.” The reason that this world is corrupt is because of lust. I live as a missionary in Uganda, East Africa. Many of these African cultures have large-scale corruption problems, so much so that the international financial organizations that have been created to help underdeveloped nations cannot even help; because so much financial aid is diverted into individual pockets. Corruption leads to ruin and destruction.
2Pe 1:4 Comments – The underlying theme of the epistle of 2 Peter is the perseverance of the saints from false doctrines, so that we overcome through the true and living Word of God. We see 2Pe 1:4 telling us that His “exceeding great and precious promises” are our way of overcoming, or persevering as we partake of His divine nature and escape the corruption that is in the world.
Note another reference to the divine promises:
2Co 7:1, “ Having therefore these promises , dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.”
Note another reference to putting off our corrupt nature and partaking of these promises by putting on the new man:
Eph 4:22-24, “That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; And be renewed in the spirit of your mind; And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.”
Peter will discuss at length in 2Pe 2:1-22 the character of those false teachers who attempt to lure unstable believers back into lusts and the corruption of this world.
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
Foreknowledge: The Role of the God the Father’s Foreknowledge in Our Divine Calling and Election The epistle of 2 Peter will focus upon the role of God the Father in our divine election, and more particularly, in our perseverance through the knowledge of His Word. 2Pe 1:3-15 reveals the role of God the Father in providing His Word to us in order to secure our election. The central message of 2Pe 1:3-15 is the apostle’ call for every believer “to make his calling and election sure” (2Pe 1:10), which is accomplished by “partaking of His divine nature” through His “exceeding great and precious promises” (2Pe 1:4). God has given us His Word so that we secure our election. As we partake of His Word, our lives will follow the course of developing the virtues outlined in 2Pe 1:5-7. This passage reflects the underlying themes of 2 Peter by expounding upon the believer’s calling and election through the foreknowledge of God the Father. Peter will emphasize the Father’s role in our election (2Pe 1:3-4) by first explaining how His divine power has given unto us all things that pertain to life and godliness (2Pe 1:3), by which He has given unto us great and precious promises (2Pe 1:4). This emphasis is reflected in the opening salutation, “it is by His righteousness that we have been obtained “like precious faith” (2Pe 1:1). He will then emphasize our role in responding to this calling and election by growing in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ (2Pe 1:5-11), which is initially reflected in the salutation, “through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord” (2Pe 1:2). Peter then discusses his soon departure from this earth foreordained by God the Father and his effort to write this epistle to leave the Church with divine instructions on becoming established in God’s Word (2Pe 1:12-15). Peter tells us that through His divine election the Father makes provision for our perseverance through His “exceeding great and precious promises” (2Pe 1:4), to which we must believe and follow.
We find the foundational theme of the perseverance of the saints emphasized within this introductory passage of 2 Peter when it says, “According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness,” (2Pe 1:3). In other words, Peter is going to write about God’s plan for the believer to persevere unto life and godliness. The epistle’s secondary theme of persevering against false doctrine through the knowledge of God is also emphasized in the phrases, “through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord,” (2Pe 1:2) and “through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue,” (2Pe 1:3). Thus, we immediately see the message of this Epistle telling us how to persevere and overcome false doctrine through the knowledge of God.
In addition, we note that this passage of Scripture places emphasis upon man’s mental realm of understanding, since our role is to grow in the knowledge of God by partaking of His divine character. This emphasis of our mind is contrasted to 1 John, which emphasizes our way of overcoming false doctrine through a pure heart; and Jude’s epistle emphasizes overcoming through a godly lifestyle, or our physical actions.
Outline Here is a proposed outline:
1. We Partake of His Divine Nature through the Promises of His Word 2Pe 1:3-4
2. How to Become Partakers of His Divine Nature 2Pe 1:5-11
3. Peter’s Impending Departure: The Occasion of His Writing 2Pe 1:12-15
Steps to Godliness 2Pe 1:3-11 gives us steps that we can take in order to ensure our entrance into Heaven. We find out that by pursuing the knowledge of God’s Word we are able to become partakers of His divine nature and escape the corruption of this world. We can find a similar passage in Pro 4:1-27 which tells us that as we partake of God’s Word we are able to transform our hearts (Pro 4:1-9) renew our minds (Pro 4:10-19) and direct our bodies (Pro 4:20-27) towards godliness.
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
The Obligations Imposed upon the Believers by the Rich Promises of God.
God’s promises and the Christian virtues:
v. 3. According as His divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him that hath called us to glory and virtue;
v. 4. whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises; that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
v. 5. And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue, knowledge;
v. 6. and to knowledge, temperance; and to temperance, patience; and to patience, godliness;
v. 7. and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, charity. Peter assumes from the outset that his readers are, without exception, believers, that they have all become partakers of the grace and peace of God through faith. Upon this fact he bases his entire discussion: Forasmuch as His divine power has given us all things that are necessary for life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him that called us by His glory and divine virtue, through which He has given to us the precious and greatest promises, that by means of these you might become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption which is in the world in lust. The apostle enumerates some of the wonderful gifts of God, as the Christians are enjoying them. It is God, whose divine power, working through the Gospel, has freely given us, donated to us, everything that serves and aids us in the new spiritual life, as it shows itself in godliness. His grace and mercy is so full and complete that there is nothing missing which might serve our spiritual needs. God presented us with all these wonderful gifts by working the saving knowledge of Himself in us, when He called us through the Gospel. The knowledge of God which the natural man possesses is at best one which makes Him fear the almighty power of the great Lord of the universe. But we have learned that God is our kind, merciful, loving Father in Christ Jesus. To this knowledge of faith God has brought us through the glory and virtue that is peculiar to Him, through His majesty as well as through His unassailable perfection, through His goodness, kindness, mercy, and grace, 2Ti 1:9; Rom 3:25-26. At the same time, and through the same perfection of His essence, God has imparted to us another gift, namely, the precious, the immeasurably great and beautiful and incomprehensible promises. His purpose in doing this was and is that He might so strengthen our faith as thereby to make us partakers of His divine nature, to give us the spiritual power to put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created us. It is in this way that we are enabled to be consecrated to Him and to flee from the corruption, from the degeneration, decay, and death which is in the world and is brought about by the evil lust, by the natural deceitfulness of the human heart in consequence of sin. Thus all the benefits of conversion and sanctification are here briefly outlined, in order to give a solid foundation to the appeal which the apostle is about to make.
For since these facts are as stated, therefore Peter has every reason to continue: But for this very reason use all your diligence and exhibit in your faith virtue; and in your virtue, knowledge; in knowledge, self-control; in self-control, steadfastness; in steadfastness, godliness; in godliness, brotherly love; and in brotherly love, universal love. The apostle delineates the growth and the expansion of the Christian’s life of sanctification as a gradual, but steady progress. Because they are enjoying such wonderful gifts of God in spiritual blessings, therefore the believers will naturally contrive in every possible way, by the application of all zeal and diligence, to give evidence of the divine nature that has been recreated in them. Faith is the root from which all virtues and good works proceed as the rich fruits of spirituality. Faith will bring virtue, manly courage, and strength, that attitude of mind which will seek to please the Lord in all things. This attitude is accompanied by knowledge, understanding of that which pleases the Lord, insight, circumspection, discernment, Christian wisdom. This, in turn, is shown in the proper self-control, not a mere product of fear and slavish submission to authority, but the willing, deliberate ruling of the body and all its members, and of the mind and all its faculties, in accordance with the will of God. This cannot be a matter of mere whim or caprice, of an occasional good thought or deed, but it must be done with patient endurance and steadfastness, in spite of all temptations from within and without. This will next result in godliness, in a life which will at all times and in all conditions be pleasing to the Lord. The chief outward evidence, moreover, of godliness is brotherly love, affection toward the brethren of the same Christian congregation or community. And this love is to extend also beyond the immediate neighborhood and interests and show itself toward all men, even toward the enemies, See 1Th 3:12; Gal 6:10. What a high ideal for the Christians to hold before their eyes at all times!
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
2Pe 1:3. According as his divine power Some would read this verse in a parenthesis, as an incidental thought, and so connect the 2nd and 4th verses. Others would connect this with the foregoing verse;Grace and peace be multiplied unto you, in or by the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord; according as his divine power hath bestowed upon us all things pertaining, &c. But the salutation being finished in the foregoing verse, the epistle seems to begin here, and the connection to be continued from this to 2Pe 1:5. &c. For there is no reddition till you come to the beginning of 2Pe 1:5. “His divine power having given us all things pertaining to life and godliness, do you therefore, giving all diligence to this very thing, add to your faith virtue.” Life and godliness are by an usual figure put for a godly life. God had given them all things pertaining to a godly life: it was not owing to any merit in them, but partly to divine grace: it was the gift of God. Whitby supposes the words to be an hendyades, and understands them of “a glorious and powerful effusion of the Spirit.”
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
2Pe 1:3 . The first paragraph, extending as far as 2Pe 1:11 , contains exhortations. The first of these is expressed in 2Pe 1:5-7 , and to it 2Pe 1:3-4 serve as an introduction.
] Lachmann connects directly with what precedes, and puts a full stop after at the end of 2Pe 1:4 ; thus also Vulg., Beza, Erasmus, Hornejus, Grotius. This combination, however, is against the analogy of the N. T. epistles, in which the superscription closes with the benediction (in the Epistle to the Galatians alone a relative clause is subjoined, ending, however, with a doxology that marks the conclusion), and is also opposed to the contents of 2Pe 1:3-4 , which serve as the basis for 2Pe 1:5 (Wiesinger). Gerhard and others consider as equivalent to (which Gerhard explains by , i.e. “postquam” vel “siquidem”), and supply to 2Pe 1:5 ; arbitrarily: belongs much more to the genitive absolute (not pleonastically, Pott). The objective reason expressed in this phrase for the exhortation contained in 2Pe 1:5 is by characterized as a subjective motive; Winer: “convinced (considering) that the divine power,” etc.; Dietlein: “in the consciousness that;” so, too, de Wette, and the more recent commentators generally; the construction in 1Co 4:18 , 2Co 5:20 , is similar; cf. Matthi, ausf. Gr. 1825, 568, p. 1120.
] The Vulg. incorrectly: quomodo omnia vobis divinae virtutis sunt, quae ad vitam et pietatem, donata est (another reading is: sunt); and Luther: “since everything of His divine power, that pertains unto life and godliness, is given us;” is here not passive, but middle (cf. Gen 30:20 , LXX.; Mar 15:45 ), and . : does not depend on , but is the subject (thus all modern commentators).
According to the position of the words, refers back to . . (Calvin, Schott, Steinfass), and not to ; [22] if it be applied to (de Wette-Brckner, Wiesinger), then (which occurs here only and in 2Pe 1:4 ; Act 17:29 : , as subst.) is pleonastic. Dietlein and Fronmller refer to God and Jesus, which linguistically cannot be justified. [23]
] the are not spoken of as the object, but: . . . For the attainment of the former is conditioned by the Christian’s conduct; but in order that it may be put within his reach, everything is granted him which is serviceable to and (cf. Luk 19:42 : ). The difference between the two ideas is in itself clear; : “blessedness,” indicates the condition; : “godliness” (except in Act 3:12 , occurring only in the Pastoral Epistles and Second Peter), the conduct. Grotius incorrectly interprets as equivalent to vita alterius seculi, and as pietas in hoc seculo. Both together they form the antithesis to . is by way of emphasis placed first, in order to show distinctly that everything , which is in any way serviceable to and ., has been given us by the divine power of the Lord. Hofmann is wrong in defining this as faith, hope, and charity, for this triad does not pertain , but is the itself.
] states the medium through which the gift is communicated to us; with , cf. 2Pe 1:2 . God is here designated as , since it is only by the knowledge of the God who calls us that the . . . . . are appropriated by us, the calling being the actual proof of His love to us. The subject to is not Christ (Vorstius, Jachmann, Schott, etc.), but God (Aretius, Hemming, de Wette, Hofmann, etc.), as almost always in the N. T. [24] Of course does not mean the mere outward, but the inward, effectual calling,
] denotes the being, the activity; Bengel: ad gloriam referuntur attributa Dei naturalia, ad virtutem ea, quae dicuntur moralia; intime unum sunt utraque. It is arbitrary to understand as meaning: “that side the nature of the Almighty One that liveth, which is directed outwards,” and by : “the holy loving-kindness of God” (as opposed to Hofmann).
The nature of God represented as the instrumentality, as in Gal 1:15 : ; too, Rom 6:4 . A wrong application is given to the words, if they be taken as referring to the miracles of Christ. It must be observed that this itself, too, is to be looked upon as wrought by Christ in us.
[22] Hofmann, indeed, applies it also to Christ, but by passing over ver. 2 to ver. 1, where, as already observed, he considers that it is not God and Christ, but Christ alone who is referred to.
[23] The application to Jesus is also supported by the fact, that otherwise this whole argument would contain no reference to Him; the application to both contains the correct idea, that the gift imparted by Jesus is the gift of God the Father.
[24] De Wette (with whom Brckner agrees) is accordingly wrong in supposing that . stands in place of the simple pron. , and is inserted because by this circumlocution of the active subject the address gains in matter and range. Schott’s remarks, in which he attempts to justify his assertion that applies to Christ, are only in so far correct, that might indeed be understood of an activity of Christ; cf. Mat 9:13 ; Mar 2:17 ; on the other hand, it is certain that is never applied to Christ, but always to God.
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
DISCOURSE: 2417
EVERY THING NEEDFUL PROVIDED FOR US
2Pe 1:3. His divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness.
THE Lord Jesus Christ, as Mediator, procures for us all blessings from God: but, as God, he authoritatively imparts them. It is of him that the Apostle speaks, when he says, His divine power hath given us all things that pertain unto life and godliness. But the words which follow my text are of more doubtful interpretation. Some understand them as importing, that these things are given for the acknowledgment of God, who has called us by the mighty working of his power. This rendering of the words is so extremely different from that which our translators have given us, and at the same time is maintained by so many persons of eminence, that I have chosen rather to wave the consideration of them altogether, than to determine which of the two is the more correct: though I cannot but say, that I prefer the sense that is given us in our authorized translation. The words before us convey a most important truth, which I shall endeavour to illustrate. The Lord Jesus has indeed given us all things that pertain unto life and godliness,
I.
In a way of general provision
In his blessed word, he has given to us, and to the whole world,
1.
Instructions
[There is nothing needful for us to know, but it may be found in the Scriptures of truth. There we are informed how a sinner may be reconciled to his offended God There we see how we may obtain a new nature, and be renewed after the image of our God in righteousness and true holiness There we are told how we may walk so as to please and honour God Nothing is omitted there, which can conduce, either to our obtaining of life, or to our possessing of vital godliness. And whatever has been added by man, has a tendency rather to counteract than forward our eternal interests ]
2.
Promises
[These are exceeding great and precious, and comprehend every thing which our necessities require. Place us in any situation that can possibly be imagined, and there will be found a promise directly applicable to our state. Nor is any thing required of us, in order to obtain an interest in these promises: if only we have a desire after the things promised, and a willingness to receive them as the free gift of God for Christs sake, they become ours, and shall be fulfilled to us: and by them we shall be made partakers of that very godliness which might be supposed to be a necessary pre-requisite for an interest in them. We are not first to cleanse ourselves from sin, and then lay hold on the promises; but first to take the promises, and then, by their influence, to cleanse ourselves from all filthiness, both of flesh and spirit, and to perfect holiness in the fear of God.]
3.
Examples
[The force of example is pre-eminently great, as affording us both direction and encouragement. And there is no grace which we can be called to exercise, but we have it exhibited and embodied in some bright pattern that is set before us. As for faith, the first leading grace from which almost all others flow, the examples of it are innumerable; and the powers which it possesses to elevate the soul are displayed in the strongest colours. Would we wish to know the precise operations of patience and meekness? the lives of Job and of Moses afford us most distinguished patterns. Would we behold fidelity, devotion, and the constraining influence of love? Elijah, David, Paul, say to us, Be followers of us, and ye shall attain these graces in perfection. Such examples as these, not to mention any others of a different kind, which are set forth for our admonition, serve to explain the precepts, and to shew us what measure of godliness we should aspire after, and may hope to attain. So that nothing is wanting to us, that can by any means help us forward in the divine life.]
But the Lord Jesus Christ has, to his obedient followers, given all things also,
II.
In a way of special communication
The instructions, promises, examples, which are contained in the Holy Scriptures, are common to all; but to his peculiar people the Lord Jesus Christ has given graces, which, by his divine power, he has wrought in their souls. On them he has bestowed,
1.
The gift of faith
[This grace is essential to the welfare of every child of man; for it is through it alone that either life or godliness can be brought into the soul. But he enables his people to come to him, and lay hold on him, and to embrace his promises; and to draw forth out of his fulness all needful supplies, both of grace and peace. In their minds he works a conviction, that they have nothing in themselves to recommend them to God, and can do nothing whereby to obtain an interest in his favour. To them he makes himself known, as the way, the truth, and the life; and he brings them to live altogether by faith in Him, who has loved them, and given himself for them.]
2.
The assistances of his grace
[Without him they can do nothing: but through strength communicated by him, they are enabled to do all things. Have they to conflict with Satan, and withstand his assaults? They go forth in the strength of Christ, and are made more than conquerors: not all the powers of darkness can stand before them. Have they to sustain the heaviest afflictions ? Through Christ they are enabled to glory in tribulations; and to take pleasure in every species of distress for his sake, under a full assurance that his strength shall be made perfect through their weakness; and that he shall be magnified in their body, whether by life or death. Whatever they have either to do or suffer, his grace his sufficient for them; and his divine power makes them perfect in every good work to do his will, working in them that which is wellpleasing in his sight.]
3.
The consolations of his Spirit
[These are of prime necessity in the divine life; for the joy of the Lord is our strength. Without the light of Gods countenance lifted up upon us, our hands will hang down, our knees be feeble, and our hearts faint. But he will send to his people the Comforter, according to his word, to be in them a Spirit of adoption, a witness of their relation to him, and an earnest of their eternal inheritance. This will support them under all their trials, and animate them in all their conflicts, and bear them up above all the concerns of time and sense. With his love shed abroad in their hearts, nothing will move them: nor will they count their lives dear unto them, if only they may but fulfil his will, and finish their course with joy.]
Application
1.
Let us inquire whether these blessings have indeed been conferred on us
[As possessing the Book of Revelation, we have free access to all the benefits contained in it. But have we availed ourselves of this liberty, so as to have become partakers of the blessings themselves ? How many are there who name the name of Christ, and yet have never received any thing from him but the name! Look ye well to this matter, my dear brethren; for, if ye be not brought to live by him, and for him, and to him, it were better that ye had never heard the Gospel at all; yea, and better that Christ himself had never come into the world.]
2.
Endeavour to make a just improvement of them
[If we are responsible to God for the offers of salvation, which are given to the whole world, much more are we for those special communications which are made only to Gods peculiar people. Have you light in your understandings? follow it with holy assiduity, and with a tender conscience; never hiding it under a bushel, or shutting it up in unrighteousness. Have you good desires in your hearts? Labour to carry them into effect; and rest not till you have attained the object for which they were given. Let every grace have its perfect work in you, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.]
3.
Impart liberally to others what the Lord Jesus has so liberally conferred on you
[It is not for yourselves only that Christ has bestowed on you such blessings; but that you may be instruments in his hands to impart them to others. Have you the Holy Scriptures? Put them, if possible, into the hands of every child of man. Are you instructed in the knowledge of them ? Send out missionaries into the world, to instruct the heathen, and to bring your Jewish brethren to the knowledge of that Saviour whom their fathers crucified. Endeavour, too, that the rising generation be imbued with the principles of our holy religion, and be made partakers of all the benefits which you yourselves enjoy [Note: If this subject be treated with a view to the advancement of a Bible Society, Mission Society, Jews Society, or Charity or Sunday Schools, the appropriate idea here touched upon must be amplified and enforced.] Freely we have received; freely give: and let every blessing that ye possess be regarded as a talent to be improved for the Lord, and to be accounted for to him at his judgment-seat.]
Fuente: Charles Simeon’s Horae Homileticae (Old and New Testaments)
3 According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue:
Ver. 3. To glory and virtue ] To glory as the end, to virtue as the means. The very heathens made their passage to the temple of honour through the temple of virtue. Do worthily, and be famous, Rth 4:11 .
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
3 11 .] Exhortation to advance in the graces of the spiritual life : introduced ( 2Pe 1:3-4 ) by a consideration of the rich bestowal from God of all things belonging to that life by the knowledge of Him, and the aim of His promises, viz. that we should partake in the divine nature.
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
3 .] Seeing that (the connexion with the greeting which precedes must not be broken: it is characteristic of this Epistle, to dilate further when the sense seems to have come to a close. The sense of with a gen. absolute is, “assuming that,” “seeing that;” cf. Plato, Alcib. i. p. 10, , : Xen. Cyr. iii. 1. 9, , , , , . See Matthi, 568. 2. Winer, 65. 9. The latter explains the usage thus, “ with a participle in the gen. absolute construction, gives to the idea of the verb a subjective character, of assumption, or intention”) His divine ( , a word peculiar in N. T., as an adjective, to this Epistle: see reff.) power hath given ( , middle in signification, as perfect passives so often: so , Act 13:2 ; Act 16:10 ; Act 25:12 ; , Rom 4:21 ; Heb 12:26 ; see Winer, 39. 3) us all things ( is prefixed by way of emphasis) which are ( requisite ) for (reff.) life and godliness ( is a mark of the later apostolic period: reff.), through (by means of, as the medium of attainment: “Dei cognitio principium est vit ( Joh 17:3 ) et primus in pietatem ingressus.” Calv.) the knowledge ( . see above) of Him that called us (i. e. of God, who is ever the Caller in the N. T.: see e. g. 1Pe 2:9 ) by (dat. of the instrument, as in Act 2:33 ; Act 5:31 ; Jam 3:7 ) His own glory and virtue ( are predicated of God in ref. 1 Pet. However these words be read, whether as in text, or . , both substantives belong to God, not to us: still less must we render, as in E. V., “called us to glory and virtue,” of which meaning there is not a trace in either reading. Bengel seems to give the meaning well, “ad gloriam referuntur attributa Dei naturalia, ad virtutem ea qu dicuntur moralia: intime unum sunt utraque” Cf. Gal 1:15 , ),
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
2Pe 1:3-4 . The Promises and their Source . “Inasmuch as His Divine Power has granted us all things that are needed for life and piety, by means of the personal knowledge of One who called us by the impression of his own glory and excellency; and through this glory and excellency have been granted promises that are precious to us and glorious, in order that, by means of these, ye might be partakers of the Divine Nature, escaping the corruption that is in the world owing to lust.”
Throughout this passage, the contrast between , , and 2 p. plur. in (2Pe 1:4 ) must be preserved. implies the apostolic circle, who, by virtue of their own experience of the and of Christ, are able to transmit to these readers certain promises “precious to us, and glorious.” (So Spitta, Van Soden).
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
2Pe 1:3 . is originally a philosophic term (Plato, Ion. 534 C., Arist. Pol. vii. 4) cf. as used by St. Paul in speaking to philosophers at Athens (Act 17:29 ). The subject is Christ ( cf. , Luk 10:17 ; 1Co 5:4 ; 2Co 12:9 ; and 2Pe 1:16 , of this chapter). The phrase is contained in an inscription of Stratonicea in Caria in honour of Zeus Panhemerios and Hekate, belonging to the early Imperial period. 2 Peter would thus be availing himself of one of “the familiar forms and formul ol religious emotion” (Deissmann, Bible Studies , p. 367). is taken as referring to in 2Pe 1:2 , which would confirm the reading adopted. . is the new life that belongs to believers in Christ. is also found in the inscription quoted above. This word and its cognates are found in N.T. only in Acts, ihis Epistle, and in the Pastoral Epistles. They are also common in inscriptions of Asia Minor, and were apparently familiar terms in the religious language of the Imperial period. In , the emphasis of meaning lies towards “godliness” in its practical, rather than its devotional aspect, i.e. , what God requires of man “pious conduct”. In 1Ti 3:16 Christ is spoken of as “the secret of piety” ( ). The conjunction of the two ideas and is significant. Religion does not narrow, but expand the province of life. The life in Christ is not “a little province of peculiar emotion. If we fear that it may lose itself in the vast and often lawless universe of life beneath, the danger is to be averted not by wilfully contracting it within a narrower field, but by seeking greater intensity of life in deeper and more submissive communion with the Head Himself in the heavens” (Hort, The Way, the Truth, and the Life , p. 147). (= “gifted” or “granted”). This word and its cognates always carry a certain regal sense describing an act of large-handed generosity. Cf. Mar 15:45 of the giving by Pilate of the body of Jesus to Joseph; Joh 4:10 ; Jas 1:17 . The same sense is found in Gen 30:20 , Pro 4:2 , Isa 62:3 ; and O.G.I.S. 517 7 (iii. A.D.) with reference to the gift by Marcus Aurelius of a new law-court, [ ] [ ] . . Judging from usage elsewhere in N.T., the reference would here be to God, who is always the Caller. 2 Peter, however, shows great independence of thought in other directions, and it is more likely that the reference is to Christ, especially as is used consistently in relation to Christ (2Pe 1:8 , 2Pe 2:20 ). (So Spitta, Von Soden, Mayor). “Cognitionem dei praesupponit haec epistula, 2Pe 1:3 . Cognitionem autem Domini nostri, nempe Jesu Christi urget proprie” (Bengel). Cf. 2. Clem. ix. 5. . . Has an intensive force here, or has it an exhausted sense merely equivalent to a personal pronoun? The emphasis conveyed in the former interpretation would better carry on the sense of . is used in sense of Joh 1:14 . is an interesting word. There is considerable evidence to prove that it is not used here in the ordinary Greek philosophical sense of “virtue,” although the combination of and is not infrequently found in philosophical writings ( cf. Plat. Symp. 208 D. Plut. Mor. 535). Deissmann, following the Stratonicean inscription already mentioned, renders “manifestation of power,” i.e. , in miracle ( op. cit. pp. 95 97). In 1Pe 2:9 it is used in plural, in LXX sense = “praises” . ( Cf. Thuc. i. 33.) In P. Hib. xv. 3 ff. (iii. B.C.) the younger men are exhorted to employ their bodies , “in a timely display of their prowess” (G. and H.). In later papyri is used as title of courtesy, e.g. , P. Oxy. 71, ii. 18 (iv. A.D.). = “if it please your Excellency”. Foucart defines as “vim divinam quae mirabilem in modum hominibus laborantibus salutem afferret” ( cf. Hort’s note, 1 Peter, p. 129 and MME, Sept. 1908).
The phrase contains one of the finest ideas in the N.T. What could be a more effective answer to the intellectualism of the Gnostic teachers or its modern equivalent, than the impression produced on the lives of men, and especially the early disciples, by the Personality of Jesus? They beheld His glory in the evidences of miraculous knowledge and power which Jesus showed at the time of their call (Joh 1:42 ; Joh 1:47-51 ; Luk 5:4 ). Their sense of His moral greatness overcame all resistance on their part (Luk 5:8 ; Joh 1:49 ). If 2 Pet. is lacking in devotional expression, his apologetic for the person of Christ is cast on most effective lines. Reason can only compass the facts of Revelation, in terms of antinomies, and it is vain to meet inadequate theories of the person of Christ by dogmatic subtlety. The Life and Death of our Lord, if its significance is to be fully understood, must be looked upon largely as an acted parable, and Christian experience the impression of is an indispensable constituent of dogmatic expression .
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
2 Peter
MAN SUMMONED BY GOD’S GLORY AND ENERGY
2Pe 1:3 .
‘I knew thee,’ said the idle servant in our Lord’s parable, ‘that thou wert an austere man, reaping where thou didst not sow, and gathering where thou hadst not strewed. I was afraid, and went and hid my talent in the earth.’ Our Lord would teach us all with that pregnant word the great truth that if once a man gets it into his head that God’s principal relation to him is to demand, and to command, you will get no work out of that man; that such a notion will paralyse all activity and cut the nerve of all service. And the converse is as true, namely, that the one thought about God, which is fruitful of all blessing, joy, spontaneous, glad activity, is the thought of Him as giving, and not of demanding, of bestowing, and not of commanding. Teach a man that he is, as the book of James has it,’the giving God,’ and let that thought soak into the man’s heart and mind, and you will get any work out of him. And only when that thought is deep in the spirit will there be true service.
Now that is the connection in which the words of my text come; for they are laid as the broad foundation of the great commandment that follows: ‘Beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, and to your virtue knowledge,’ and so on, all the round of the ladder by which the Apostle represents us as climbing up to God. The foundation of this injunction is–God has given you everything. You have got it to begin with, and so do you set yourselves to work, and see that you make the thing that is yours your own, and incorporate into your being and into the very substance of your soul, and work out in all the blessed activities of a Christian life, the gifts that His royal and kingly hand has bestowed upon you. Take for granted that God loves you and gives you His whole self, and work on in the fulness of His possessed gift.
That is the connection of the words before us. I take them just as they lie in our passage, dealing first of all with this question–God’s call to you and me; how it is done. Now I do not know if I can venture to indulge any remarks about Biblical criticism, but you will perhaps bear with me just for a moment whilst I say that the people who know a great deal more about such subjects than either you or I, agree with one consent that the proper way of reading this verse of my text is not as our Bible has it; ‘Him that has called us to glory and virtue,’ but ‘Him that hath called us by–by his own glory and virtue.’ Do you see the difference? In one case the language expresses the things in imitation of the Divine nature to which God summons you and me when He calls us. That is how our Bible has taken it; but the deeper thought still is the things in that Divine nature and activity itself which constitute His great summons and invitation of men to His side; and these are the two, whatever they might be, which the Apostle here describes in that rather peculiar and unusual language for Scripture, ‘Who has called us by His own glory and His own virtue.’ I venture to dwell on these two points for a moment or two.
Now, first of all, God’s glory. Threadbare and consequently vague as the expression is in the minds of a great many people who have heard it with their ears ever since they were little children, God’s glory has a very distinct and definite meaning in Scripture, and all starts, as I think, from the Old Testament use of the expression, which was the distinct specific name for the supernatural light that lay between the cherubim, and brooded over the ark on the mercy-seat. The word signifies specifically and originally the glory of God, and irradiation of a material, though supernatural, symbol of His Divine and spiritual presence. Very well, lay hold of that material picture, for God teaches us as we do our children, with pictures. Take the symbol and lift it up into the spiritual region, and it is just this: the glory of God in its deepest meaning is the irradiation and the perpetual pouring out and out and out from Himself, as the rays of the sun stream out from its great orb, pouring out from Himself the light and the perfectness and the beauty of His own self revelation. And I think we may fairly translate and paraphrase the first words of my text into this: God’s great way of summoning men to Himself is by laying out His love upon them and letting the fulness of that ineffable and uncreated light, in which is no darkness at all, stream into the else blinded and hopeless lives and hearts of men. Then the other side of the Apostle’s thought seems to me–if we will only strip it of the threadbare technicalities associated with it–as great and wonderful, God’s glory and God’s virtue. A heathenish kind of smack lingers about that word, both as applied to men and as applied to God, and so seldom found in the New Testament; but meaning here, as I venture to say, without stopping to show it–meaning here substantially the same thing that we mean by that word energy or power. You know old women in country places talk about the virtues of plants. They do not mean by this the goodness of plants, but they mean the occult powers which they suppose them able to put forth. We read in one of the gospels that our Lord Himself said at one singular period of His life that virtue had gone out of Him, meaning thereby not goodness but energy. So I think we get a sufficient equivalent to the Apostle’s meaning if for the second two words of my text we read, ‘He hath called us by the glory, the raying out of his love, and He hath called us by the activity and the energy, the power in action of His great and illustrious Spirit.’ So you see these two things, the light that streams out of an energy which is born of the streaming light. These two things are really at bottom but one, various aspects of one idea. Modern physicists tell us that all the activity in the system comes from the sun, and in the higher region all the activity comes from the sun, and there is no mightier force in the physical universe than the sunlight. Lightnings are vulgar, noisy, and limited in contrast. The all-conquering force is the light that streams out, and so says Peter in his vivid picturesque way–not meaning the mere talk of philosophy or theology–the manifestation of the glory of God is the mightiest force in the whole universe. It is not like the play of the moonbeam upon an iceberg, ineffectual, cold, merely touching the death without melting or warming it, but it rays out like the sun in the heavens, and the work done by the light is mightier than all our work. By His glory, and by the transcendent energies which reside in that illustrious manifestation of the uncreated light, God summons men to Himself. Well, if that is anything like fair exposition of the words before us, let me just ask you before I go further to stop on them for one moment. If I may venture to say so, put off your theological spectacles for a minute, and do not let us harden this thought down with any mere dogma that can be selected in the language of the creeds. Let us try and put it into words a little less hackneyed. Suppose, instead of talking about calling, you were to talk about inviting, summoning, beckoning; or I might use tenderer words still–beseeching, wooing, entreating; for all that lies in the thought. God summoning and calling, in that sense, men to Himself, by the raying out of His own perfect beauty, and the might with which the beams go forth into the darkness. Ah! is not that beautiful, dear brethren; that there is nothing more, indeed, for God to do to draw us to Himself than to let us see what He is? So perfectly fair, so sweet, so tender, so strong, so absolutely corresponding to all the necessities of our beings and the hunger of our hearts, that when we see Him we cannot choose but love Him, and that He can do nothing more to call wandering hearts back to the light and sweetness of His own heart than to show them Himself. And so from all corners of His universe, and in every activity of His hand and heart and spirit, we can hear a voice saying, ‘Son, give me thine heart.’ ‘Oh! taste and see that God is good.’ ‘Acquaint now thyself with Him and be at peace; thereby good shall come unto thee.’
But great and wonderful as such a thought seems to be when we look at it in the freshness which belongs to it, do you suppose that that was all that Peter was thinking about? Do you think that a wide, general, and if you leave it by itself, vague utterance like that which I have been indulging in, would give all the specific precision and fulness of the meaning of the word before us? I think not. I fancy that when this Apostle wrote these words he remembered a time long, long ago, when somebody stood by the little fishing-cobble there, and as the men were up to their knees in slush and dirt, washing their nets, said to them, ‘Follow Me.’ I think that was in Peter’s estimate God’s call to him by God’s glory and by God’s virtue. And so I pause there for a moment to say that all the lustrous pouring out of light, all that transcendent energy of active love, is not diffused nebulous through a universe; it is not even spread in that sense over all the deeds of His hand; but whilst it is everywhere, it has a focus and a centre and a fire. The fire is gathered into the Son, Jesus Christ; Jesus Christ in His manhood and in His Deity; Jesus Christ in His life, passion, death, resurrection, ascension, and kingly reign. The whole creation, as this New Testament proclaims Him to us, is God’s glory and God’s virtue, whereby He draws men to Himself. I cannot stay to dwell on that thought as I should be glad to do. Let me just remind you of the two parts into which it splits itself up; and I commend it, dogmatically as I have to state it in such an audience as this–I commend it to the multitudes of young men here present. The highest form of the Divine glory is Jesus Christ, not the attributes with which men clothe the Divinity, not those abstractions which you find in books of theology. All that is but the fringe of the glory. And I tell you, dear friends, the living white light at the centre and heart of all the radiance of the flame is the light of life which is conveyed into the gentle Christ. As the Apostle John has it, ‘We beheld His glory.’ Yes, and taking and binding together the two words which people have so often treated against each other, ‘We beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth,’ the highest light in Him that says, ‘I am the light of the world’–very light of very light. As a much maligned document has it,’very light of very light,’ the brightness of His glory, the irradiation of His splendour, and the express image of His person. And as the light so the power. Christ the power; power in its highest, noblest form, the power of patient gentleness and Divine suffering; power in its widest sweep, ‘unto every one that believeth’; power in its most wondrous operation, ‘the power of God unto salvation.’ So I come to you, I hope, with one message on my lips and in my heart. If you want light, look to Christ. If you want to behold that unveiled face, the glory of the Lord, turn to Him, and let His sunshine smite you on the face as the light smote Stephen, and then you can say, ‘He that hath seen Him hath seen the Father.’ My brother, the highest, noblest, perfect, and, as I believe, final form in which all God’s glory, all God’s energy, are gathered together, and make their appeal to you and me, was when a Galilean peasant stood up in a little knot of forgotten Jews and said to them, and through them to you and me, ‘Come unto Me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.’ He calls by His glory and by His virtue.
Now still further. Confining myself as before to the words as they lie here in this text, let me ask you to think, and that for a moment or two only, on the great and wondrous purpose which this Divine energy and light had in view in summoning us to itself. His Divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain to life and all things that pertain to godliness. Look at that! One of the old Psalms says: ‘Gather my saints together unto me, those who have made a covenant with me by sacrifice; assemble them all before my throne, and I will judge my people.’ Is that the last and final revelation of God’s purpose of drawing men to Him? Is that why He sends out His heralds and summons through the whole intelligent creation? Nay, something better. Not to judge, not to scourge, not to chastise, not to avenge. To give. This is the meaning of that summons that comes out through the whole earth, ‘Come up hither,’ that when we get there we may be flooded with the richness of His mercy, and that He may pour His whole soul out over us in the greatness of His gifts. This is God, and the perpetual activity summoning men to Himself that there He may bless them. He makes our hearts empty that He may fill them. He shapes us as we are that we may need Him and may recreate ourselves in Him. He says, ‘Bring all your vessels and I will fill them full.’ Now look in this part of my subject at what I may venture to call the magnificent confidence that this Peter has in the–what shall I say?–the encyclopdical–if I may use a long word–and universal character of God. All things that pertain to life, all things that pertain to godliness. And somebody says, ‘Yes, that is tautology, that is saying the same thing twice over in different language.’ Never mind, says Peter, so much the better, it will help to express the exuberant abundance and fulness. He takes a leaf out of his brother Paul’s book. He is often guilty when he speaks of God’s gifts of that same sin of tautology, as for instance, ‘Now unto Him who is able to do exceeding, abundantly, above all’–there are four of them–’all that we can ask or think.’ Yes, in all forms language is but faint and feeble, weak and poor in the presence of that great miracle of a love that passeth knowledge and that we may know the heights and depths. And so says our Apostle, ‘All things that pertain to life, all things that pertain to godliness.’ The whole circle all round, all the 360 degrees of it, God’s love will come down and lie on the top of it as it were, superimposed, so that there should not be a single gift where there is a flaw or a defect. Everything you want of life, everything you want for godliness. Yes, of course, the gift must bear some kind of proportion to the giver. You do not expect a millionaire to put down half a crown to a subscription list if he gives anything at all. And God says to you and me, ‘Come and look at My storehouses, count if you can those golden vases filled with treasure, look at those massive ingots of bullion, gaze into the vanishing distances of the infiniteness of My nature and of My possessions, and then listen to Me. I give thee Myself–Myself, that ye may be filled with all the fulness of God. All things that pertain to life, all things that pertain to godliness. But I cannot pass on from this part of my subject without venturing one more remark. It is this: I do not suppose it is too minute, verbal criticism. This great encyclopdiacal gift is represented in my text, not as a thing that you are going to get, Christian men and women, but as a thing that you have gotten. And any of you that are able to test the correctness of my assertion will see I have thought the form of language used in the original is such as to point still more specifically than in our translation, to some one definite act in the past in which all that fulness of glory and virtue of life and godliness was given to us men. Is there any doubt as to what that is? We talk sometimes as if we had to ask God to give us more. God cannot give you any more than He gave you nineteen hundred years ago. It was all in Christ. Get a very vulgar illustration which is altogether inadequate for a great many purposes, but may serve for one. Suppose some man told you that there was a thousand pounds paid to your credit at a London bank, and that you were to get the use of it as you drew cheques against it. Well, the money is there, is it not? The gift is given, and yet for all that you may be dying, and half-dead, a pauper. I was reading a book only the other day which contained a story that comes in here. An Arctic expedition, some years ago, found an ammunition chest that Commander Parry had left fifty years ago, safe under a pile of stones. The wood of the chest had not rotted yet; the provisions inside of it were perfectly sweet, and good, and eatable. There it had lain all those years. Men had died of starvation within arm’s length of it. It was there all the same. And so, if I might venture to vulgarise the great theme that I try to speak about, God has given us His Son, and in Him, all that pertains to life and all that pertains to godliness. My brother, take the things that are freely given to you of God.
And so that leads me to one last word, and it shall only be a word, in regard to what our text tells us of the way by which on our side we can yield to this Divine call, and receive this Divine fulness of gifts, through the knowledge of Him that hath called us to glory. Through the knowledge! Yes, well there are two kinds of knowledge, are there not? There is the knowledge by which you know a book, for instance, on the subject of study, and there is the knowledge by which you know one another; and the kind of thing I mean when I say, ‘I know mathematics,’ is entirely different to what I mean when I say, ‘I know John, Thomas,’ or whoever he may be. And I venture to say that the knowledge, which is the condition of receiving the whole fulness of the glory and the whole fulness of the light, is a great deal more like the thing we mean when we talk of knowing one another than when we talk of knowing a book. That is to say, a man may have all the creeds and confessions of faith clear in his head, and yet none of the life, none of the light, none of the power, and none of the godliness. But if we know Him as our brother, know Him as our friend, our sacrifice, our Redeemer, Lord, all in all; know Him as our heaven, our righteousness, and our strength; if we know Him with the knowledge which is possession; if we know Him with the knowledge which, as the profoundest of the Apostles says, ‘hath the truth in life’; if we know Him, see then, ‘This is life eternal, to know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent.’
Now, friends, my words are done. God is calling you. No, let us put it a little more definitely than that–God is calling thee. There is no speech nor language where His voice is not heard. His words are gone out to the end of the world, and have reached even thyself. He calls thee, oh! brother, sister, friend, that you and I may turn round to Him and say, ‘When Thou saidst, Seek ye my face, my heart said unto Thee, Thy face, Lord, will I seek.’ Amen.
Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren
divine. Greek. theios. See Act 17:29.
power. App-172.
given = been given. It is the same perfect passive translated “are given” in 2Pe 1:4. Greek. doreo. See Mar 15:45.
all = (as to) all.
that pertain unto = for. App-104.
life. App-170.
godliness. See 1Ti 2:2.
through. App-104. 2Pe 1:1.
hath. Omit.
to = to His own, as the texts.
glory. See p. 1511.
virtue. See Php 1:4, Php 1:8.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
3-11.] Exhortation to advance in the graces of the spiritual life: introduced (2Pe 1:3-4) by a consideration of the rich bestowal from God of all things belonging to that life by the knowledge of Him, and the aim of His promises, viz. that we should partake in the divine nature.
Fuente: The Greek Testament
2Pe 1:3. , as all things to us) There is a wonderful cheerfulness in this exordium, beginning with the exhortation itself, add, etc., 2Pe 1:5. For this is the object of the Epistle; 2Pe 1:13; 2Pe 3:1. All things, in this passage, and all, 2Pe 1:5, have reference to one another; for as the Protasis is here, so is the Apodosis there. As has the effect of explaining, as 2Co 5:20. Comp. altogether the parable of the ten virgins, Matthew 25. The flame is that which is imparted to us by God and from God, without any labour on our part: but the oil is that which man ought to add by his own diligence and faithfulness, that the flame may be fed and increased. Thus the matter is set forth without a parable in this passage of Peter: in 2Pe 1:3-4, we have the flame; but in 2Pe 1:5-6, and those which follow, we have that which man himself ought to add [lit. to pour upon it], the presence of Divine grace being presupposed.- , the Divine power of Him) of Him, that is, God: for this is to be repeated from the word divine. From the power of God proceeds all power to life and godliness.- ) those things which pertain unto life from God, and earnestness towards God. Observe, it is plainly not by godliness that we obtain life. The Divine glory imparts life (comp. Rom 6:4, note); His power, godliness. To the one corruption is opposed, to the other lust; 2Pe 1:4.-, has given) Thus , He hath given: used twice in an active sense. Thus Gen 30:20, Septuagint, , God hath given me a goodly gift.- , of Him that called us) To this refer the calling in 2Pe 1:10. The calling and knowledge are correlative terms. It is the knowledge of God which is meant; and to this God calls us.- , by His own glory and virtue) This is an explanation of what His Divine power is: so that the natural attributes of God have reference to His glory; those attributes which are called moral, have reference to His virtue. The two are closely united.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
2Pe 1:3-11
EXHORTATION TO GROWTH IN GRACE
2Pe 1:3-11
3 Seeing that this divine power hath granted unto us all things that pertain to life and godliness,–These words are to be closely construed with verse 2. On our part there is no occasion for alarm that we will not be properly supplied seeing that all things pertaining to life and godliness have been granted us. “Life” refers to the spiritual vigor which the soul possesses; “godliness” to the conduct necessary to preserve and maintain it. This verse is a clear affirmation of the sufficiency of God’s revelation to man, as well as an unmistakable assurance that every, need of every kind will be supplied.
Through the knowledge of him that called us by his own glory and virtue; –“Knowledge” here is from the same word as in verse 2. This grant of all things needful is supplied through this knowledge. (Joh 17:3.) The manner in which Christians are called by his glory and virtue is explained by Paul in Eph 1:17 ff.
4 Whereby he hath granted unto us his precious and exceeding great promises; –It is through the glory and the virtue mentioned in the preceding verse that these precious and exceeding great promises have been vouchsafed to man. The promises are precious because of what they mean to the human soul; and they are exceeding great because they include forgiveness, peace, the promise of eternal life and a share in the divine nature.
That through these ye may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust.–The word for “partakers” (koinonoi) is, literally, “sharers,” “partners,” and points to the relationship which Christians sustain to the Lord. By availing themselves of these precious and exceeding great promises they are privileged to share in the divine nature –the holy character which God possesses. The chastening and disciplining to which children of God are subjected in this life is for the purpose of enabling them to be “partakers of his holiness.” (Heb 12:10.) Man was originally created in the image, and after the likeness, of God (Gen 1:26); but this image and rational likeness was lost in the fall. It is restored to man in the transformation which occurs in conversion. (2Co 3:18; Col 3:10.) “Having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust,” is, in the Greek text, “having escaped from the corruption that is in the world in lust.” The meaning is, that corruption is in the world; it operates through lust; and only those who are partakers of the divine nature escape its ravages. The second clause of the verse sets forth the positive side of Christianity; the third, the negative side.
5 Yea, and for this very cause adding on your part all diligence,–An exhortation based on premises drawn from verse 4. “Because of the precious and exceeding great promises which are yours, be adding on your part all diligence.” “Adding on your part” translates a remarkable word (pareisenegkantes) occurring nowhere else in the Greek Testament, and meaning, literally, “bringing in by the side of.” The term indicates the comparative unimportance of man’s participation in his salvation by suggesting that his part is merely contributory, “brought in by the side of what God does,” and yet is absolutely essential, since God’s part is done only on condition that man complies with his. In view of the absolute necessity of man’s contribution by the side of what God does, Peter admonishes “all diligence.” “Diligence” is from spoude, to hasten. All children of God are thus exhorted to hasten to bring in their part, though small and insignificant compared with what God does for us, in order that they may avail themselves of the blessings which the Father has made available to them. That in which diligence is particularly enjoined follows.
In your faith supply virtue; –“Without faith it is impossible to please God” (Heb 11:6); hence, it is the foundation and the source from which all other duties spring. The word “supply” (from the Greek epichoregeo) is highly suggestive and interesting in the implications which follow from its origin. Originally it meant to found and support a chorus, to lead a choir, to keep in tune, and then, to supply or provide. As here used, the graces which adorn the Christian’s character are to be chorused into a grand symphony to the delight and pleasure of him who fashioned and made us for his own good pleasure. It will be seen that there are eight of the graces, and that they thus form an octave of soul tones, the first being faith, the last love, an octave higher. When these are harmonized and played on by the divine Spirit, disharmony disappears and life’s discords vanish. How we should rejoice that we have been privileged to provide such an instrument in the hand of our God!
“Virtue” (arete) which faith supplies is courage and soul vigor, the manliness and the determination to do that which is right.
And in your virtue knowledge; –As faith is to supply virtue, virtue is to supply knowledge, knowledge is to supply self-control, and so through the entire list of graces mentioned. Each thus becomes an instrument by which that which follows is to be wrought out and perfected. “Knowledge” (gnosis) is the discrimination indicated in Eph 5:17 and Heb 5:14. This knowledge is gained by, and grows out of, the practice of virtue.
6 And in your knowledge self-control; –The familiar “temperance” of the King James’ Version has properly given way to the more accurate rendering “self-control.” The word is derived from en and krates, “one who holds himself in.” It denotes self-government, discipline, the ability of one to control his own life. It is acquired through the exercise of discernment, the knowledge by which one differentiates between right and wrong, and thus develops from it. One possessed of such knowledge and being thus equipped to identify evil is able to avoid it.
And in your self-control patience; –The word translated patience here is more nearly endurance, inasmuch as it suggests somewhat more than mere resignation to life’s difficulties. It includes the idea of positive resistance of evils and a stedfast bearing up under them. Self-control leads to and perfects patient endurance, because only those who discipline themselves are able to endure patiently the trials of life.
And in your patience godliness; –“Godliness” (eusebeia) is humble reverence and deep piety toward God. Often unbelievers manifest a stoical patience toward the adversities of life, but without the motive which springs from respect and devotion toward God. Patience is approved only when it results in submission to the burdens of life for the sake of pleasing the Father. The desire to be godlike is. the motive from which all our actions should originate, and without which there can be no acceptable service rendered to God.
7 And in your godliness brotherly kindness; –“Brotherly kindness” is from the Greek word philedelfrhia, literally, love of the brethren. As God is our Father, his children are our brethren, and the obligation to love them is clear and explicit: “And whosoever loveth him that begat loveth him also that is begotten of him.” (1Jn 5:1.)
And in your brotherly kindness love.–A warmhearted affection for the brethren is to lead to love, love not only for the brethren, but for all men, love–the crown and jewel of all graces. “And the greatest of these is love.” (1Co 13:13.) Its right to occupy this foremost position among all the graces is further evidenced by Paul to the Colossians: “And above all these things put on love, which is the bond of perfectness.” (Col 3:14.)
It is important to observe that it was the apostle’s intention to indicate that each of these graces grows out of, and is produced by the one which precedes it. Before each grace mentioned, the verb “supply” is to be understood. Each creates and makes possible the next; each tempers and makes perfect that which goes before it. The preposition in which he attaches to each indicates that the grace which follows is included in the one which precedes it, and is thus produced by it. The list of graces enumerated may be analyzed as follows: (1) Those which are necessary to form the Christian character: virtue, knowledge, self-control, patience; (2) that which reveals the follower of Christ to be a servant of God (godliness), a member of the family of God (brotherly kindness), and well disposed toward all men (love). From this we learn that no grace can stand alone; each is possessed only as it is able to produce and make permanent in the life of others without which the Christian character cannot exist.
8 For if these things are yours and abound, they make you to be not idle nor unfruitful unto the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.–“Are yours” is a better translation than the “in you” of the King James’ Version, since the verb conveys the idea of a permanent possession rather than a mere indwelling of the graces designated. These graces are to become an integral part of Christian character and to reproduce themselves in the manifold acts of the Christian life as they “abound” (better, multiply) to that end. Thus activated, one is neither idle nor unfruitful; the trend of his life is toward the “full knowledge” (epignosis) of the higher life of the spirit. Thus full, or complete, knowledge is the goal toward which all Christian service tends, and which may be reached in no other way. Either one abounds in good works, or his life is idle and fruitless. There is no alternative.
9 For he that lacketh these things is blind, seeing only what is near, having forgotten the cleansing from his old sins.–“For” is causal and indicates the sequence of thought intended by the apostle. We are to possess the Christian graces and allow them to multiply in good works unto the knowledge of Christ, for if we do not do so we suffer an impairment of sight making it impossible for us to discern the most elementary matters of the Christian life. The words “seeing only what is near” are from the Greek muopadzo, and used of one who is able to see only by constantly blinking his eyes and keeping them partially closed. One so afflicted closes his eyes, not to keep from seeing, but in order that he may be able to see, his myoptic condition rendering him unable to look directly into the light. Thus hindered in his vision, distant objects are to him indistinct, and he sees only that which is near. In this figurative fashion Peter pictures for us the man deficient spiritually and hence able to see only the things about him–the world and its affairs–having lost the power to look into the future and see by faith beyond the gate of life eternal.
Such a one has forgotten the cleansing he received from his old sins when he was baptized (Act 2:38; Act 22:16; 1Pe 3:21), because he is no longer influenced by such recollection. His attitude is so much the same as before he was baptized that he regards himself as in his original condition of sin. The words “having forgotten” are from an unusual phrase, occurring only here in the New Testament, lethen labon, signifying “having received or accepted forgetfulness.” By a voluntary act such a one has adopted an attitude of forgetfulness toward his former obedience. The meaning is that one who does not supply in his faith the graces mentioned accepts a situation in life wherein he disregards the fact that he was once purged (cleansed, forgiven) of his sins.
10 Wherefore, brethren, give the more diligence to make your calling and election sure:–“Wherefore,” i.e., in view of the matters set forth in verses 5-9, “give the more diligence . , .” “Diligence” here, as in verse 5, means “to hasten,” and the exhortation is to more (mallon) haste, greater zeal and earnestness in the pursuit of those qualities essential to the Christian life. The infinitive to make is significant, and is translated, not from poiein, absolutely to make or do a thing man is incapable of, respecting his salvation, but from poiesthai, present middle infinitive, to make or to do for one’s self. Unable to fashion a plan by which to save himself, man may and must comply with God’s plan in order to his salvation. Salvation is indeed a “calling” and an “election”; it is God who calls and elects; but he calls by his gospel (2 Thess. 2 13, 14), and he elects only those who place themselves in the way of salvation through obedience to his will (Mat 7:21). Election and calling never operate to destroy the free agency of man. God’s grace is not irresistible; man may make it void (Gal 2:21) and receive it in vain (2Co 6:1). God’s calling is the invitation (klesis); the election (ekloge) is man’s acceptance. This calling and election is to be made sure (actually, secure), and this is done through human instrumentality. Here is a thorough and decisive refutation of the doctrine of the impossibility of apostasy. It is impossible to make secure that which has never been in doubt.
For if you do these things, ye shall never stumble:–“If,” i.e., on condition that you do these things–supply in your faith the graces hereinbefore enumerated. Those who thus do have an effective defence agains falling; they shall never stumble (ptaio, to strike one’s foot against an object and fall).
11 For thus shall be richly supplied unto you the entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. –The verb “supplied” is translated from the same word as “supply” in verse 5, where see comments. There is a designed correspondence between the words “supply” and “abound” in verses 5 and 8 and the words “supplied” and “richly” here. We are to supply the virtues mentioned, and God will supply the entrance into the eternal kingdom; we are to abound in these graces and he will richly provide his part. The kingdom is styled “eternal” because it will never end. The blessings which it contains will never fail. Because it is described as the kingdom “of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ,” we are not to conclude that Christ will reign as king over it after the second coming. At the end of this, the Christian dispensation, and following the resurrection and the general judgment he will abdicate in favor of his Father: “But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; then they that are Christ’s at his coming. Then cometh the end, when he shall deliver up the kingdom to God, even the Father when he shall have abolished all rule and all authority and power.” (1Co 15:23-24.) “Kingdom of our Lord . . .” is genitive of the agent, and not of possession, and it designates the kingdom which was estalished through his direction on the first Pentecost following his resurrection. It is styled “eternal” because it shall stand forever.
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
his: Psa 110:3, Mat 28:18, Joh 17:2, 2Co 12:9, Eph 1:19-21, Col 1:16, Heb 1:3
all: Psa 84:11, Rom 8:32, 1Co 3:21-23, 1Ti 4:8
through: 2Pe 1:2, Joh 17:3
called: Rom 8:28-30, Rom 9:24, 1Co 1:9, Eph 4:1, Eph 4:4, 1Th 2:12, 1Th 4:7, 2Th 2:14, 2Ti 1:9, 1Pe 1:15, 1Pe 2:9, 1Pe 2:21, 1Pe 3:9, 1Pe 5:10
to: or, by
virtue: 2Pe 1:5, Rth 3:11, Pro 12:4, Pro 31:10, Pro 31:29, Phi 4:8
Reciprocal: Num 6:23 – General Deu 32:47 – General Psa 108:7 – I will rejoice Son 1:10 – thy cheeks Isa 53:11 – by his Act 2:39 – as many Rom 1:7 – called 1Co 2:7 – unto Gal 1:6 – that called Eph 1:17 – in the knowledge Phi 3:8 – the excellency Phi 3:14 – the high Col 1:10 – increasing Col 2:2 – understanding 1Th 5:24 – calleth 1Ti 2:2 – all godliness 1Ti 6:3 – the doctrine 2Ti 1:1 – the promise 2Ti 1:10 – and hath Tit 1:1 – after Heb 3:1 – holy 2Pe 1:6 – godliness 2Pe 3:11 – godliness 2Pe 3:18 – knowledge 3Jo 1:2 – even
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
2Pe 1:3. Inasmuch as salvation is the subject under consideration, the phrase his divine power refers to the Gospel for Rom 1:16 declares that it is the power of God unto salvation. Our verse states that this power (which is the Gospel) hath given all things that pertain unto life and godliness. The negative thought would be therefore that any doctrine or practice that is not authorized by the Gospel does not have anything to do with life and godliness. The terrible conclusion that is unavoidable is that when men practice anything in their religious life that is not authorized by the Gospel, they are guilty of that which will result in death to them because it is classed with ungodliness. The offering of these life-giving items is done through knowledge of the Lord since he is the one who has made the call herein mentioned. Glory means honor and dignity and virtue means excellence or a condition of completeness. The word to is from DIA and its leading meaning is “by means of.” The statement about the call should then be worded as follows: “Knowledge of him who ‘lath called us by his glory and virtue.” Such a rendering is also in line with the connection which shows that the Gospel, in which these qualities are contained, is the means by which men are called into the service of Christ.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
2Pe 1:3. Seeing that his divine power hat gifted us. This verse and the next are attached by the A. V. immediately to what precedes. They are thus made part of the opening benediction. This was once almost the accepted connection. It was retained by the great critic Lachmann, and it appears to be favoured by the punctuation which is adopted in the most recent critical edition of the original, namely, that by Westcott and Hort. Alford, too, holds that the connection with the former verse should not be broken, as it is characteristic of the writer of this Epistle to dilate further when the sense seems to have come to a close. There is much, nevertheless, against this. The inscriptions of the Epistles are short, compact, and self-contained. That of the former Epistle of Peter is decidedly so. In a few of the Epistles (Hebrews, James, 1John, 3John) there is no introductory greeting, or at least no benediction. Where there is such, it closes the inscription. Even in the case of the Epistle to the Galatians, which might seem to be an exception to the general form, the longer inscription is concluded by a doxology. This being the general model of the inscriptions, it is better to connect 2Pe 1:3-4 with what follows. They thus lay the deep foundation for the exhortation, which follows in 2Pe 1:5. That foundation is the liberal grant of grace which believers have received from Him in whom they believe. The grant, too, is described at some length, as regards its source, its extent, the means of its attainment, the object with which it is bestowed. So Bengel conceives that in the present paragraph we have the truth which is enshrined in the Masters parable of the Virgins (Matthew 25) expounded without the parabolic form, the 3d and 4th verses dealing with the flame, that is to say, with that which is simply conferred by God without action on our side, and the subsequent verses dealing with the oil, that is to say, all that which we ourselves have to contribute in order to maintain, extend, and utilize the flame. The A. V., therefore, somewhat misses the point by its according as, which gives the idea of a standard to which our efforts are to conform. What is intended is neither this, nor a mere explanation such as is supposed by some (e.g. Bengel, Mason) on the analogy of 2Co 5:20, but the emphatic statement of a fact, which is thrown into the strongest relief at the outset. They had received a great endowment of grace, and this at once made them capable of acting out the lofty pattern of character immediately depicted, and laid them under obligation to do. Hence the opening phrase should be rendered considering that, forasmuch as, or (with the R. V.) seeing that. The verb rendered given in the A. V. is not the ordinary verb, but a richer form which may be translated gift or grant It occurs only once again in the N. T., namely of Pilates grant of the body of Jesus to Joseph (Mar 15:45). The bestowal of this endowment of grace is ascribed to His Divine power. Whose? Gods, say some; Christs, say others; while a third party say it is the power of God and Jesus in the oneness of their nature and activity. On the whole, the second view (which is that of Calvin, Huther, etc.) seems most likely. It would be somewhat superfluous to describe the power as Divine, if the Subject in view were God the Father. It is not superfluous, if the Subject in view is that Jesus our Lord who was crucified in weakness but also raised in power, and who puts forth the power of His resurrection (Php 3:10) in the imparting of all needful gifts to His servants. This epithet Divine, indeed, occurs only twice again in the N. T., namely in 2Pe 1:4 and in Act 17:29. The power of Christ which works in behalf of Christians, secures for them this wealth of spiritual privilege only because it is a power of a Divine order.
with all things pertaining to life and godliness. The sense might perhaps be more adequately given thuswith all things, to wit all those pertaining to life and godliness. The grant is represented as a universal one, so far as these particular objects are concerned. By life and godliness we are not to understand mans temporal interest on the one band and his spiritual interest on the other. Both terms refer to the latter interest. As the subjoined statement shows, life has here the wide sense of life truly so called, the eternal life which Christ (Joh 17:3) identifies with the knowledge of the only true God and Him whom He sent. The term for godliness is one in which the original idea is that of reverence, or the fear of God. It is of somewhat peculiar usage in the N. T., being found nowhere but in the Pastoral Epistles (1Ti 2:2; 1Ti 3:16; 1Ti 4:7-8, etc.), and on the lips of Peter (Act 3:12; 2Pe 1:3; 2Pe 1:6-7, 2Pe 3:11). It has a distinctively Old Testament tone. The two words, therefore, express two distinct things, the former denoting the new, inward condition of the believer, the latter the attitude toward God which corresponds with that condition. It is to be noticed, however, that what Peter describes believers to be gifted with is not the life and godliness themselves, but all things pertaining to these. The new life itself is also a Divine gift. But that life admits of being regarded under the aspect of a thing appropriated and used by the recipient of it, as well as a thing communicated by grace. It is with the latter that Peter deals at present. Taking it for granted that the gift of life is there, he will have it understood that this is not to lie dormant, because the Divine power of Christ has furnished with the new life itself also all that is serviceable to our living it out for ourselves, and giving effect to it in a type of conduct ruled by the fear of God.
through the knowledge of him who called us through glory and virtue. The same intense term for knowledge is used here as in 2Pe 1:2. The calling is given as belonging entirely to the past (called, not hath called), the first definite introduction into Christs kingdom being in view. The Person who called us is in all probability God; although some (e.g. Schott) take Christ to be intended in the present instance, holding that at least occasionally, as in Rom 1:6 the usual N. T. practice of ascribing the call to God the Father is departed from. The A. V. is entirely in error in rendering the last clause to glory and virtue. In this it has followed the unto of the Genevan; Tyndale, Cranmer, and the Rhemish rightly give by. Otherwise the reading varies between two forms which have much the same sense, viz. through glory and virtue, and by his own glory and virtue. By the glory we may understand the sum of Gods revealed perfections. As to the term virtue, see on 1Pe 2:9, where it is used to express the excellencies of God. It occurs again in 2Pe 1:5 of this chapter, and in the N. T. its use is confined to the writings of Peter, with the single Pauline exception of Php 4:8. In the Classics it denotes excellence, whether physical or mental. In the Greek Version of the O. T. it represents the Hebrew term for the majesty (Hab 3:3; Zec 6:13, etc.) and the praise (Isa 42:8) of God. Here the combined terms appear to describe the Divine perfections both as revealed and as efficient. What is meant, therefore, is that this grant of all things serviceable for life and godliness, which Christs Divine power has secured for us, becomes actually ours only as we know the God whom Christ has declared, and who called us out of darkness by revealing His own gracious perfections and making them efficient in our case. There is a measure of resemblance to 1Pe 1:21, where it is said to be by Christ that we believe in God.
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
In these words our apostle shews, what reason they had to believe and hope, that grace and peace should be multiplied unto them, namely, because almighty God had already given them all things which conduced to make them holy in this life, and happy in the next, by the knowledge of Christ.
Others, by life and godliness, understand all things conducing to the reservation of natural life, likewise of grace here, and glory hereafter; and whereas it is said they were called to glory and virtue, by glory understand the honour of being Christians; by virtue, the good life that becomes Christians. To both these they were called with a glorious calling, as being attended with the glorious effusion of the Holy Ghost. If by glory and virtue be understood grace here, and glory hereafter, it shews our privilege, that we have both at present in a way of incoation, and shall ere long enjoy both in a way of consummation; and and it points out also to us our duty, we must have virtue, if we would have glory; if we be not like Christ, we can never love him, nor may we ever expect to live with him.
Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament
2Pe 1:3-4. As his divine power hath given us all things There is a wonderful cheerfulness in this exordium, which begins with the exhortation itself; that pertain to life and godliness To the present natural life, and to the continuance and increase of spiritual life, termed here godliness; through the knowledge The divine and saving knowledge; of him Christ; that hath called us to glory Eternal glory hereafter, as the end; and to virtue Or holiness, as the way leading thereto. Or fortitude, one particular branch of holiness, (frequently meant by the word ,) may be here intended, as it is by the same word, 2Pe 1:5. The original phrase, however, , is literally, by, or through glory and virtue; that is, as some understand it, by his glorious power; or the glorious and powerful effusion of the Spirit, as Whitby understands the words. Whereby By means of which glorious power, or illustrious seal set to the declaration of the gospel; or, as some would render , for the sake of which things; that is, that we might attain to this glory and virtue; are given unto us great and precious promises Namely, the promises of the gospel, which he calls great and precious, because the things promised are the grandest that can be conceived by the human mind, and infinitely more valuable than any present enjoyments or expectations: promises of the pardon of sin, of acceptance with God, of his peculiar favour, adoption into his family, and being treated as his sons and daughters; favoured with liberty of access to him, and intercourse with him; with direction in difficulties, protection in dangers, succour in temptations, comfort in troubles, a supply of all our wants, and an assurance that all things shall work for our good; promises of the Spirit of adoption, of regeneration and sanctification, to be sent into our hearts as a pledge and earnest of our future felicity; and, to crown the whole, the promise of everlasting life, felicity, and glory. Both the promises and the things promised, which follow in their due season, are here intended; that by these By the consideration of, and faith in, these true and faithful promises, and the great and glorious blessings exhibited in, and ensured to, true and persevering believers thereby, you might be encouraged and induced to renounce the world and sin, with every corrupt inclination and affection, design and desire, and be made partakers of the divine nature Of a new, holy, and heavenly nature, derived from God, through the influence of his Spirit renewing you in his image, and giving you communion with himself so as to dwell in God, and God in you; having escaped the corruption that is in the world The corrupt customs and habits, principles and practices, that are found in worldly men, , through desire, namely, irregular and inordinate desire, the desire of unlawful things, or the immoderate desire of things lawful, that fruitful source of sin and misery.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
ARGUMENT 1
THE ABUNDANT ENTRANCE.
This is the glorious antithesis of the extremely difficult entrance of the justified man (1Pe 4:18). This abundant entrance is for the soul who has been not only regenerated and sanctified, but who has added the beautiful, bright, and glorious constellation of Christian graces given in this chapter, constituting the establishing enduements of the Holy Ghost.
3. Life and godliness. We receive life in regeneration and godliness in sanctification, which expurgates the heart from all fear, and makes us like God. Through the knowledge. Greek epignoosis, i.e., perfect knowledge, sanctification, in contradistinction to gnosis, regeneration.
4. In order that through these promises you may be partakers of the divine nature, i.e., regenerated by the Holy Ghost, having escaped the corruption that is in the world, through lust, i.e., having all depraved lusts taken out of you, which is precisely the work of sanctification. Hagiazoo from gee, the world, and alpha, not, i.e., to take the world out of you. Hence you see those people here reported by Peter are already regenerated and sanctified.
The God of all grace, having called you into His own everlasting glory in Christ will make you perfect, having suffered a little while, will establish, strengthen and settle you. (1Pe 5:10)
In this wonderful argument Peter specifies the graces by which people who have been regenerated and sanctified are established, strengthened and settled in holiness, so they may never fall, but secure the abundant entrance into heaven.
5. Now we reach that beautiful constellation of establishing graces which has served to fortify His people against apostasy, establish them in holiness to secure to them the abundant entrance. Virtue is first in the constellation. The Greek is aretee, from arees, the Grecian war-god who stirred up all of the battle and led the combatants in deadly conflict, delighting in rivers of blood and mountains of slain. Hence it is the strongest possible revelation of that redoubtable Christian heroism which always seeks the hottest conflict, the front of battle and thickest of the fight. It is real bull-dog courage which never lets go. It makes you brave enough to fight a regiment of devils. Since you have to hew your way every step to the celestial gate, you must have this grace. Without it you will fall soon or late. God help you to add it. And to heroism, knowledge. The Greek is gnosis, one of the spiritual gifts imparted by the Holy Ghost to the sanctified to establish and make them efficient soul-savers. You can not keep sanctified and remain ignorant. Salvation is for fools, but you can not keep it and remain fools. You must be an assiduous student in the school of Christ, sitting meek and lowly at the feet of Jesus, taught by the Holy Ghost the deep things of God. The Holy Ghost will use the saints of God and good books to teach you, yet He Himself is the Great Teacher. You in utter abandonment to God, all your creeds, means, enterprises forever abnegated, learn how to be taught by the Holy Ghost. This divine gnosis, knowledge, is insight into divine truth, which none but the Spirit who made the world can give. Without this grace you will never be a preacher of the Word. You may fill the pulpit and preach theology, literature, science, and Biblical history, but you will never preach the Gospel, nor receive the crown of a soul-saver. You should be homo unius libre, a man of one book, and that book the Bible. Of course, you should use all other books which explain the Bible in harmony with the Holy Ghost.
6. To knowledge, temperance. The Greek is egkrateian, from ego, I, and kratos , government. Hence it means self-government in harmony with the will of God, i.e., practical holiness. Sanctification gives you experimental holiness, but to this you must add practical holiness, otherwise your experience will prove evanescent. It is temperance in that high sense which absolutely abstains from everything that is not for the glory of God. If we are going up to live in heaven we must learn to live in this world as we will live in heaven. Thy will be done on earth as it is done in heaven. Thus is practical holiness the life we are to lead. To temperance, patience. Let patience have its perfect work. Without perfect patience you can not keep your experience. Sanctification takes all the fret and worry out of you. You can not keep your experience and give way to them. All sorts of annoyances and temptations will be a blessing to you, strengthen and confirm your patience, if you do not let the enemy impart impatience.
Perfect patience is not the greatest enduement of patience, but simply patience without impatience. If you can, by the help of God, keep all impatience out of your heart, your patience will grow with marvelous rapidity, reaching up into gianthood, and bidding defiance to all sorts of annoyances, becoming actually imperturbable. To patience, godliness, i.e., godlikeness. God has lived and died on this earth, teaching us the entire problem of humanity by precept and example how to live and how to die. Four faithful historians have given us His biography. Oh, what a blessing! By the time we study Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, we all learn how to live and how to die, encompassing the entire problem of human probation, responsibility and destiny. Sinners follow Satan, not always willingly, but blinded by him, and led captive at his will. Unsanctified Christians follow Jesus but not with a perfect heart. They very largely follow human leaders. Wholly sanctified people follow Jesus only, with all the heart. For that reason the secular clergy have always opposed the sanctification of their people, lest they will lose their hold on them. If we are going to heaven, we must get saved from human leadership, so we will follow the Lord alone. As all men are fallible, God never purposed that we should follow them. Therefore He came on the earth, lived and died, giving us a perfect example throughout, corroborated by His plain and unmistakable teachings.
7. To godliness, brotherly kindness. This word is philadelphia in the Greek. George Fox preached entire sanctification in England a hundred years before John Wesley. Flooded with the Holy Ghost, he quaked as he stood before the people. Hence they called him The Quaker. When William Penn was sanctified under his preaching with the sword buckled round him, the insignia of his office in the British Government, he asked Fox, How long shall I wear this sword? Just so long as the Lord will let you, was the answer. He soon laid it off when sent to America with his sanctified Quaker followers to found a colony. They all came unarmed. Meeting the Indian chiefs under the great elm trees, they were unutterably astonished, for the first time in their lives to see white men unarmed. Penn said, We are all children of the same loving heavenly Father, who wants us to live together in peace. Now, where shall we found a settlement? The savages break and weep, saying, You are the very people we want to live with and teach us how to worship the Great Spirit as we ought. So our land is before you. Settle where you will. Penn choose that very spot and called it Philadelphia, the very Greek word used by the Holy Ghost in this passage and translated brotherly love. It means the mutual love of the white man and the Indian in case of the Pennsylvania metropolis. In our text it means the mutual love of all mankind. You see how it won the hearts of the savages. Amid the dark, bloody massacres of the pioneer ages, not a drop of Quaker blood was shed by an Indian. Experimental sanctification obliterates race, color, and sectarian and national lines, so far as the affections of the heart are concerned. Then we must faithfully live in harmony, with artesian wells of universal philanthropy, springing up in the heart and overflowing the world. Otherwise our experience will evanesce. And to brotherly kindness, charity, i.e., the divine agapee, a much stronger word than charity. It is not simply the philia, human love for all the world, but the love which God gives us. He has plenty of it, and will so flood us as to inundate us with an ocean without banks or bottom, so we will have an ample supply, not only for every human being, but for every poor animal that has feeling, and is capable of suffering.
8. These things are in you, in regeneration and abound in sanctification. Therefore you will grow in grace and bear an abundance of fruit through knowledge of God. The Greek is epignoosis, i.e., perfect knowledge, peculiar to the sanctified, involving experimental certainty, in contradistinction to the foggy experiences so prevalent in the churches.
9. This verse reveals the sad apostasy of those who do not add these establishing graces to their experience of regeneration and sanctification. This is the great delinquency, filling up the ranks not only of church members, but of holiness people, with backsliders, bring mountains of reproach on the cause of God, laying a stumbling-block before the ignorant.
10. Here we are taught how to make our calling and election sure, i.e., get born of the Spirit, and thence sanctified, proceeding with all enthusiasm to add this beautiful constellation of establishing graces. For doing these things you may never fall. Here is the true, final perseverance of the saints, so prominent in the Calvinistic creeds. Get regenerated and sanctified; add these establishing graces. While you do these things there is no collapse. So here is a title deed to heaven, free to all who want to make heaven a certainty.
11. For thus an entrance shall be administered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Oh, what a contrast with scarcely saved, justified man (1Pe 4:18). Do not risk the tight squeeze into heaven, least you be squeezed out instead of in. God flood your heart with aspirations after the abundant entrance, in which there is no conceivable risk. Surely we can not afford to take any risk on heaven. Get regenerated and sanctified, and add these glorious establishing graces and you will never fall while you do them. Then rest assured you will have no difficulty, but the abundant entrance. Valentine Cook was a pioneer preacher in Kentucky, under Bishop Asbury. One day while riding along the horse-path through the primeval forest, Satan put his hand on his shoulder. Valentine Cook, you are a great man, a big preacher, thus doing his utmost to inflate his vanity and upset his experience. After a number of unsuccessful efforts to expel the adversary, he sees he must go to his knees, turns out the path, hitches his horse, down on his knees he falls and cries to God. Then retorts the wily enemy, Now you get it. Dont you see that hunter drawing a bead on you, mistaking your bear skin overcoat for a bear. Run for your life. Well, devil, if he shoots me, the bullet will be Gods way to open heavens gate and let me in. Glory to God! Now he pours out his soul in prayer. God floods him from the heavenly ocean. He rises with a great shout and goes on his way, the devil skedaddling. The very night of his death, a venerable comrade-in-arms enjoyed a notable heavenly vision. Enraptured in contemplation of the ineffable celestial glory, gazing upon the effulgent throne, an angel comes flying rapidly from the gate, ringing the news, Valentine Cook is dying. Immediately God commands them to ring all the bells of heaven and blow all the trumpets. Forthwith all heaven is in commotion, processions are parading in all directions, moving toward the gate, which is thrown wide open.
Meanwhile myriads of angels sweep out, shouting aloud, Welcome home, Valentine Cook. God grant that you and I may have the abundant entrance.
Fuente: William Godbey’s Commentary on the New Testament
1:3 {3} According as his {b} divine power hath given unto us all things that [pertain] unto {c} life and godliness, through the {d} knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue:
(3) Christ sets forth himself to us plainly in the Gospel, and that by his only power, and gives us all things which are required both for eternal life, in which he has appointed to glorify us, and also to godliness, in that he furnishes us with true virtue.
(b) He speaks of Christ, whom he makes God and the only Saviour.
(c) To salvation.
(d) This is the sum of true religion, to be led by Christ to the Father, as it were by the hand.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
II. THE CONDITION OF THE CHRISTIAN 1:3-11
"The first chapter vividly portrays the nature of the Christian life with its challenge to spiritual growth and maturity, built on a sure foundation. The second part of the epistle is a ringing polemic against the false teachers who would allure and seek to mislead God’s people, while the third chapter deals with the heretical denial of the return of Christ and concludes with some fitting exhortation to the readers." [Note: D. Edmond Hiebert, "The Necessary Growth in the Christian Life: An Exposition of 2 Peter 1:5-11," Bibliotheca Sacra 141:561 (January-March 1984):43.]
Second Peter is one of the few New Testament epistles in which chapter divisions consistently coincide with thought divisions.
"In seeking to prepare the readers against the danger from the false teachers, Peter states in chapter 1 that their safety lies in their clear apprehension of the nature of the new life in Christ and their spiritual growth and maturity in the faith as the best antidote against error." [Note: Ibid.]
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
A. The Believer’s Resources 1:3-4
Peter reminded his readers of God’s power and promises that were available to them. He did this to rekindle an appreciation for the resources God had given them in view of their present needs. This epistle begins and ends on a note of victory (cf. 2Pe 3:14-18).
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
Grace and peace are possible since God has given us (all Christians) everything we need to live godly lives.
"’Power’ is one of the key-words of the epistle." [Note: Sidebottom, p. 105.]
It is possible that Peter meant the apostles specifically when he wrote "us" in 2Pe 1:3-4. [Note: R. H. Strachan, "The Second Epistle General of Peter," in The Expositor’s Greek Testament, 5:124.] The apostles are evidently in view in 2Pe 1:1 ("ours"), and they may contrast with the readers ("you") in 2Pe 1:2; 2Pe 1:5. If this is what Peter meant, he was probably continuing to stress his apostolic authority, specifically in the teaching that follows. This would have been important since the false teachers were claiming that their teaching was authoritative (ch. 2). However the opening sections of most other epistles that contain reminders of God’s blessings (e.g., Eph 1:3-14; 1Pe 1:3-9), as 2Pe 1:3-4 does, seem to refer to all believers as "us." Moreover the "our" in 2Pe 1:2 seems to be inclusive of all believers rather than a specific reference to the apostles. Nevertheless the prologue to 1 John (2Pe 1:1-4) apparently does refer to the apostles as "us." I have not found any commentators who believed that Peter was referring to the apostles alone in 2Pe 1:3-4.
"Life and godliness" is probably a hendiadys meaning "a godly life." A hendiadys is a figure of speech in which the writer joins two substantives with "and" rather than using an adjective and a substantive. These resources are available to us through full knowledge (cf. 2Pe 1:2) of Jesus Christ, namely, through relationship with Him (cf. Php 4:13; Col 2:9-10; 2Ti 1:7). Lenski rightly, I believe, called epignosis ("full knowledge"), ". . . the key word of this epistle." [Note: Richard C. H. Lenski, The Interpretation of the Epistles of St. Peter, St. John and St. Jude, pp. 271, 332. Cf. 1:2, 8; 2:20.]
"Just as a normal baby is born with all the ’equipment’ he needs for life and only needs to grow, so the Christian has all that is needed and only needs to grow." [Note: Warren W. Wiersbe, The Bible Exposition Commentary, 2:437.]
Is what God has given us in His Spirit and His word sufficient for a godly life, or do we also need the insights of other branches of knowledge (e.g., psychology)? Clearly our basic resources as Christians do no equip us for every task in life (e.g., auto maintenance, gardening, orthopedic surgery, etc.). This was not Peter’s claim. But how do the resources that he identified and modern psychology interface? Can psychology provide tools for growth in godliness, or is the Bible sufficient in itself for this? It seems to me that Peter’s point was that God’s Spirit and His word provide everything that is essential to godly living, not that these are the only resources that we have or should use. Peter’s point was that there is nothing that all believers need to become more godly that He has not already made available to us (cf. 2Ti 3:16-17). Some people, for various reasons, need more specialized help in dealing with the obstacles to godly living that they face, which psychology may provide. Nevertheless, no one can get along without God’s Spirit and His word to make progress in godliness.
Jesus Christ called Peter’s readers to Himself in the sense that His excellent glory, another hendiadys, attracted them to Him. "Excellent" (Gr. areten) really means moral excellence or virtue (cf. 2Pe 1:5). Both Christ’s glory and His moral virtue appealed to the Gentiles as well as the Jews.