2 Peter 1:1–21

He gives his old name, Simon (Symeon in the Greek), followed by the new name the Lord gave him, Peter. He calls himself a servant first, before he mentions his apostleship. The word servant is the same word Paul used of himself: a slave. Clearly Peter valued being a servant more than being an apostle.

In this later letter Peter does not hide his Jewish name, the name of his nature with all its failure. Yet he puts the lovely name "bondman" before his title as apostle. That name shone in his eyes more than ever. It is needed and good for believers to think about it, delight in it, and make it their own.

"Like precious faith" raises no question about the measure of faith in those who believe. It says that what they believe is just as precious for the simplest Christian as for an apostle — in its source, its agent, its object, and its result. It is the full revelation of God in Christ, and not only a message from God, as it had been from the start.

If we have received precious faith, it is the same faith that Simon Peter had, the bondman and apostle of Jesus Christ. Faith is not a reward for service that deserves it. It is not the result of any natural process in the soul. God gives it, a gift in sovereign love.

He is not appealing to sinners, or to people who merely claim the Christian name, but to believers in the middle of that profession. "The precious faith" is the faith of Christianity, in contrast to Judaism, which these believers had once belonged to.

The apostle describes his fellow believers as having obtained the same precious faith he had. It came through God's faithfulness to the promises made to the fathers, for that is the force of the word "righteousness" here. The faithfulness of the God of Israel had given His people this faith — that is, Christianity — which was so precious to them.

It is strange that anyone should confuse "faith through righteousness" with "righteousness through faith"; but they do… The apostle is really speaking of the precious faith of Christianity replacing Judaism, which had now come to an end. It came through the righteousness of the One who had stepped in to keep His prophetic Word, and to hold up the hearts of the true Israel with His abundant loving mercy. This is divine righteousness displayed, not handed over to us.

No scholar who has weighed the construction carefully denies that leaving out the second article can join two persons in one action, where the phrase does not describe a single person. The context must decide which is meant… I am inclined to believe that in Peter's letters, as in Hebrews, the inspired writer meant to strengthen his readers in the great truth that Jesus was the Jehovah of Israel, the true God, no less than the Father.

You have this faith through the faithfulness of Him who was the Jehovah of Israel, and who was also the Saviour who came down and walked in this world. God has been righteous and faithful. So, in spite of the nation's sin, you have this faith in God's own blessed Son.

Grace is the favour and power that lifts us above present circumstances. Peace is the calm of confidence by which to pass through all circumstances. Both are wished to the saints in multiplied measure. As evil multiplies around us, so grace and peace may be multiplied in full sufficiency to meet the need. But this is found only in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord: nothing can substitute for this.

Grace is the present favour of God, and peace is the present standing place of the soul. He wishes those blessings to be multiplied. There is where the soul stands: in perfect peace with God, in the present acceptance of God, and in His favour. Peter wishes their grasp of it multiplied.

This form of greeting using the word "multiplied" is confined to the two letters of Peter and the letter of Jude. It is not without significance. When believers suffer, as seen in the First Letter of Peter, they can count on God to multiply grace and peace. But Second Peter and the letter of Jude look forward to the last days, the end of the age, with its predicted turning away from the faith. For those days God promises to multiply grace, peace and mercy to His own.

The knowledge of God and of Jesus is the centre and the support of faith. It feeds faith, and in it faith is developed and enlarged by God. This knowledge also guards faith from the empty imaginings of deceivers. But there is a living power with this knowledge — a divine power in what God is to believers — as He is revealed in this knowledge to faith.

The two words differ because the preposition epi is added to gnosis, "knowledge" (or its verb). That prefix strengthens it, making it "a deeper and more intimate knowledge and acquaintance."

2 Peter 2:20-22 shows the solemn fact that such a full knowledge might be only in the flesh. It can end in a last state worse than a first, or total ruin… The faith, Christianity, is so rich in knowledge of the greatest interest that the natural mind may deceive itself. Where the conscience is not before God, and the soul is not purified by obedience to the truth, it can easily pick up much knowledge that only puffs up instead of building up… In a word there is no repentance toward God, but intellectualism.

The grace that lets us escape the corruptions of Christendom is not found in merely knowing the evil. It is found in the knowledge of God and all we have in Him. The peace we need in the middle of lawlessness does not come from trying to fight and crush the lawlessness. It comes from being kept under the rule of Jesus "our Lord", the One to whom we owe allegiance. The sheep escape the traps of the stranger by knowing the voice of the Shepherd.

How is this grace and peace to be multiplied? "In the knowledge of God." The intensifying of that grace and peace can only come as we walk with God. Show me a person who is walking with God, and I will show you one who gets grace multiplied day by day. Walk closely by Christ, and you will get the peace that He came to give multiplied day by day.

We have not only received life. With it we have received all the things needed to show that new life in practical Christian living and godly behaviour... A few moments' thought would remind us of some of the gifts God's power has given us: the Holy Spirit living in us, the Word of God written for us, the throne of grace opened to us, to name only three. We have received not some but ALL things that have to do with life and godliness. So we are sent out fully equipped. Nothing is lacking on God's part.

There is no limit at all in what God gives us... Whatever comes, whether trial, difficulty or sorrow, we as believers can never think it is random. It comes from Him... This is part of what He calls "all things that pertain to life and godliness," because trial and difficulty make up the very path where we must live out that life and keep up that godliness.

Life is of course the living spring of spiritual existence, and only the One who gives it can keep it going. Godliness is the practical showing of that life, and so a reflection of God's own character. The first has to do with God's side of things, the second with our own side.

Eternal life is a life that enjoys God and is suited to God... The first thing is a life that comes from Him, and is taken up with nothing but Him. Then comes godliness, God-likeness.

But there is a living power with this knowledge — a divine power in what God is to believers, as He is revealed to faith in this knowledge. This divine power has given us all that belongs to life and godliness. Through the real knowledge we have of Him who has called us, this power becomes available and effective for everything that belongs to life and godliness.

So we have here the call of God to pursue glory as our object, winning the victory by virtue — spiritual courage — over all the enemies we find in our path. This is not a law given to a people already gathered together. It is glory set before us, to be reached by spiritual energy.

The glory of God in the future has the most powerful influence among the traps of the present. So God has revealed that glory as our hope, through Christ and with Christ, to lift the soul above everything that attracts it or drags it down. He has called us by His own glory, and by the virtue, or moral courage, that refuses to indulge self, which is against the will of God.

Calling does not apply to an innocent creature, but to a fallen one. Calling means that God speaks to take that creature out of the state he is in, and put him into a better one. Adam was to magnify God by honouring Him where he was, and by enjoying what God had given him all around, not by reaching for something unseen or greater.

We have to face the power of the flesh within, the power of the world around, and the power of the devil against us. But the power of God is far above every power set against us, and it is for us. In this power it is possible to live the life of godliness.

What are these promises? They are certainly not the ones God made to the fathers. Those were great. But the promises spoken of here are "precious and very great." We have to go back into eternity to find out what they are. They come to us so that we may become partakers of the divine nature. No doubt they include all that God purposed in His own mind to bring us into, all He has promised us in Christ Jesus.

Calling and promise always go together. If God calls, He calls with some purposed blessing in view. Later in the letter Peter points to these promises: the promise of the Lord's coming, and the very great promise of "new heavens and a new earth" (2 Peter 3:4, 13).

In 2 Peter 1:4 we are made partakers of divine nature — the words do not say of the divine nature — and by promise this is our own state. But we are not love, for Love is sovereign goodness, and that we cannot be. We love as sharers in divine nature too, but we can never be sovereign goodness.

Every true believer is "born of God" and in that sense shares in the divine nature (see 1 John 3:9)... But the meaning of our passage is not that the things given to us make us born again. Peter was writing to people who were already "born again" (1 Peter 1:23). The meaning is that these things lead us into a practical, experienced partaking of the divine nature. In one word, love is the divine nature. So verses 5 to 7 describe the believer's growth as reaching its high point in love.

God makes us partakers of the divine nature at conversion, when we are born again. But Peter shows us the sweet result of tasting what the Lord is and walking with Him... He brings us into the atmosphere that suits God. We breathe the air He breathes, and so we become spiritual... First we get the capacity to enjoy God. Then, as we walk with Him, that enjoyment deepens.

So God makes us partakers of the divine nature in a moral sense. His power acts in us and fixes the soul on what He has revealed. What a precious truth! What a high privilege! It makes us able to enjoy God Himself, and everything good with Him.

The victorious life does not come from some fixed "holiness experience" that wipes out the old nature. That teaching is completely against Scripture. The heart must be taken up with Christ and with the glory by which He has called us. Then the divine power, the Holy Spirit in us, acts, and victory over sin follows.

All the corruption in the world is the fruit of lust. The word "lust" covers every desire that springs from man's fallen nature. The law of Moses came in and put a restraint on those desires. But the law did not hold lust back; men's lusts broke through its restraints... God brings us believers to share in the divine nature, and holiness springs from that nature. So we are lifted out of the corruption and escape it... there is no other way of escape than this.

We not only refuse to give in to it. Our hearts are taken up elsewhere, and the enemy's work on the flesh is held off. The desires we could never clean out of ourselves are removed. The heart's corrupt tie to the thing it wanted comes to an end. It is a real deliverance.

It is not "And besides this." It is an energetic call for what is due to the grace of God. That grace gave the remarkable blessing of sharing a divine nature through faith in His very great and precious promises. Even a mind ruled by the flesh draws a conclusion from the power and certainty of divine grace. It sees that there is room for earnest and practical purpose of heart in the believer. But Scripture enlarges the argument, warns against sloth and easy-going, and summons us to constant diligence on all sides.

The divine nature the believer has received loves the will of God. It is a holy nature, so it hates the corruption that is in the world through lust. But that divine nature grows and develops in the life of the child of God, and that growth needs all care and diligence. Suppose Christians say they have a new nature, are born again, and saved by grace. Then they go on living according to the old nature, enjoying the world and its sinful pleasures, without showing godliness and virtue. They are not only in a very unscriptural position, but on dangerous ground.

This is not addition in the ordinary sense of the word. Verse 5 should read, "For this very reason, using also all diligence, in your faith have also virtue, in virtue knowledge," and so on. You are perfect when you do not lack any of these qualities. Someone may give you an apple to taste, because you are a good judge of apples; you taste it and say, It is very nice, but it lacks sweetness. So you may say of a Christian, "He is a nice Christian, but he lacks self-control." The Christian is to show the divine nature in all its qualities.

Virtue is that energy and courage of soul that knows how to refuse as well as to choose. Moses did that. He "refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin." You have the faith that connects you with God, and you believe in what you cannot yet see. But now you must add virtue. That is the courage which knows how to say "No" to the thousand things that come up day by day, and to press on without wavering in the pathway set before us.

This self-government — this virtue, this moral energy — is deliverance from evil, and it makes communion with God possible. It is the one thing that gives reality to all the rest. Without virtue we are not really with God. Can divine power develop itself in the looseness of the flesh? And if we are not really with God — if the new nature is not acting — knowledge is only the puffing up of the flesh. Patience is only a natural quality, or else hypocrisy. It is the same with the rest.

In virtue we are to have knowledge. Virtue gives great strength to a person's character. But strength must follow knowledge — and that means the highest and best knowledge of all, the knowledge of God and His will. Otherwise it may become a dangerous thing.

If this blessed adding is missing, there is sure to be a going back. There is no such thing as standing still. If we are not progressing, we are going backwards. "To the one who has, more will be given… but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away." If there is no desire to press on, to go on with the Lord, what is left? Only a return to the things the Lord called us out of in days gone by.

The familiar passage in 2 Peter, "Add to your faith, virtue," and so on, is not really addition. To put it in numbers, it is multiplication. It is, "Have in your faith, virtue." That is, let courage mark your faith; let knowledge mark your courage; let self-control mark your knowledge, and so on.

The thought is having all the qualities that belong to the perfect thing. You are perfect when you do not lack any of these qualities. Someone may give you an apple to taste, because you are a good judge of apples. You taste it and say, It is very nice, but it lacks sweetness. So you may say of a Christian, "He is a nice Christian, but he lacks temperance."

The word "temperance" in 2 Peter 1:6 means much more than people usually take it to mean. They apply it to a habit of moderation in eating and drinking. No doubt it fully involves this, but it involves much more. In fact, the Greek word the inspired apostle uses can be translated "self-control." It gives the idea of someone who keeps himself well reined in at all times.

The very first thing, as we learn the truth, is to recognise the claim the truth has on us. That is its discipline: it separates us from other things and so gives us self-restraint, the power to command ourselves. We may be sure that we can command nothing else if we do not begin here. "In knowledge," therefore, we are to find "temperance," self-restraint. The truth is to govern us, and so to give us the power of self-government. The heart must be in the knowledge, not the head only.

If knowledge alone rules us, we can easily become creatures of extremes. A believer who sees things very clearly can act in a way that endangers the welfare of less discerning brothers and sisters, as Romans 14 and 1 Corinthians 8 show us. So we need temperance.

Temperance will keep me from saying or doing something that will wound you. Patience will keep me from being upset by anything you may do that is likely to wound me. Temperance is active, patience is passive!

There is suffering for righteousness, if not for Christ's name, and it is never far from a Christian's path for long. So he needs the self-control that supplies "endurance." He is not to flinch if he is called to suffer, however unjustly. It is natural to complain about this, but how unworthy it is! Would it be any satisfaction, or real relief, if one deserved it?

"And to patience godliness" — God-likeness. You walk through this world possessing the divine nature. See that you display it, show it! Show me a man's company, and I will show you what kind of man he is. If you are keeping company with God you will be a godly person, for we all resemble the thing we are occupied with. It comes out in a thousand details of our everyday life.

Nothing matters more for the soul than keeping our links with God and our Lord Jesus fresh and in constant use — links of reverence and affection, of dependence and obedience. Yet work presses hard on us, and so do the course of the age, the deceitfulness of riches, the disappointment at loss, and desires for other things. That makes the danger from any earthly preoccupation great.

Scripture distinguishes between "love" and "brotherly love." The original uses distinct words for them. Love is "agape," and brotherly love is one word, "philadelphia." "Philadelphia" is more like friendly love. The Authorised Version tried to express this with the phrase "brotherly kindness." But it is more than that. It includes kindness, but it is love — love in the shape it takes between brothers and sisters. Perhaps the best rendering is "brotherly affection."

This is not addition in the ordinary sense of the word. Having all the qualities of the perfect thing is the thought. You are perfect when you do not lack any of these qualities. A person may give you an apple to taste, because you are a good judge of apples; you taste it, and say, It is very nice, but it lacks sweetness. So you may say of a Christian, "He is a nice Christian, but he lacks self-control." The divine nature in all its qualities is to be seen in the Christian.

Dry godliness — if one may speak so — won't do. With godliness we must have the warmth of Christian friendship, brotherly affection. Sometimes a machine moves stiffly and roughly, and may not move at all, when a few drops of oil would make it run right and smooth. Love among believers works the same way. It overcomes the difficulties of the day, conquers coldness and apathy, and goes out winning the hearts of the saints to serve them.

Brotherly love is a most sweet and precious fruit of grace. That is entirely true. It is precious in the heart that is filled with it, and precious as it grows between us. But it is not love in the full sense. We are told to add love to brotherly love. The reason is simple. In brotherly love, brothers and sisters are the object. When it is genuine and pure, it does flow from grace. But in us it easily takes on the character its object gives it. It tends to limit itself to the people it is taken up with, and to be ruled by its feeling toward them. It tends to stop in its objects. It avoids anything that might hurt them or spoil the pleasantness between them. So it makes them the measure of the Christian's conduct.

Love will not tolerate evil. That is because it is God's presence, and because we feel His presence and look to Him in it. In mere brotherly kindness, the brother is the object before my mind. So I put man before God, cover up evil, keep the kindness going, and so far shut God out. Love is His active presence, though it will be shown in love to man; but it gives to God all His rights.

These last two qualities are not the same. "Love" is a great deal more and deeper than "brotherly kindness." The latter makes one's brother the prominent object; the former tests everything by God and His will and glory. So you may find a Christian very full of brotherly love, but sadly at fault when the test of love comes. Love feels and insists that the first of all duties is that God should have His way.

With brotherly love we are also to have love — divine love. Otherwise our love may go no further than our brothers and sisters, instead of flowing out in the largeness of the love of God to the world around. Also, brotherly love may easily sink into partiality and mere human affection.

In brotherly kindness there is an object for my love that draws it out, but love is a nature, and it looks for an object on which to spend itself.

Notice that these things are to be in us and abound. They are not like garments put on us, for then they could be taken off on occasions. Like fruit, they are the product and expansion of the divine life within. If they abound in us, they prove us to be neither "barren" — or "idle" — "nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ."

But the apostle was led to seek more. He urges that these things should "abound" also. They do so where Christ dwells in the heart by faith… Christ is and must be the spring and strength of the heart for all that is acceptable to God. The exercise of the heart in the full confidence of Christ's love promotes growth in what is good. So these things are not only really present in the Christian. They also abound through dependence on His grace.

What is the effect? They "make you not idle nor unfruitful for the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ." It was a change for the worse when the older version put "barren" in place of "idle." That change led many readers and preachers to guess what the difference could be between "barren" and "unfruitful." But there is no room for doubt or difficulty. Translators render this first word "idle" elsewhere, and they should do so here.

How unworthy to be idle! We stand in such a blessed relationship, and grace has given us a new nature so excellent that it turns away every evil thing. How unworthy to be fruitless, if we are branches in the True Vine! The Father prunes such branches so that they may bear more fruit (John 15:2; 1 Peter 1:17). "By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples" (John 15:8).

Here the Apostle sets out the blessed effects of having these qualities. He also sets out the serious consequences for the one whose life lacks them. A life marked by these qualities would be a full and abundant life. This matches the Lord's desire that His sheep should not only have life but have it abundantly (John 10:10). So too our knowledge of the Lord Jesus would not be barren and unfruitful. A life of practical godliness bears fruit for God. It also brings usefulness and blessing to people.

The end of every dealing of God with our souls is to make Christ better known to us. If a Christian goes on in the exercise of these three verses, you find about that person the fragrance of Christ. Peter felt that everything was sheer loss that did not lead the saints to a deeper knowledge of Christ. What puts us nearer to Christ has this effect: we feel how unlike Christ we are. It also draws us away from the world, so that we are more fit in character to pass through it.

"For" is the true connective here, not "but." How sad that such a description should apply to one bearing the Lord's name! ... What a fall from divine privilege to be "blind," or even short-sighted! It is the lack of spiritual perception. It comes from neglecting communion with God. It is the result of habitual indifference and self-seeking, which slights Christ and grieves the Spirit.

The next word, "shortsighted," explains it. The heavenly things, the things far off, are no longer what the eyes of the heart look at. So the things that are near, the things before all mankind, absorb the mind. It is a worldly spirit actively at work after the things of the world, and not those which the Father loves.

You will say this is a backslider. Not at all! He is confident about his eternal salvation... Has he forgotten that his old sins were purged away? Not a bit! He has forgotten that he was purged away from his old sins — his habits and ways of life when unsaved. So he has turned back to them again and got back into the world. He has lost the sense of what Christianity is, as a heavenly thing.

It is a question of practice. Suppose my child is dressed to go with me to pay a visit, but he runs out into the mud. "Oh," I say, "you have forgotten that you were dressed to go with me."

It is not that a soul here denies the truth of the gospel, or opposes his justification by faith in Christ and His work. But the enjoyment of peace with God is gone. This is because the Holy Spirit no longer gives present witness to his spirit that he is a child of God. Instead He testifies to his inconsistent and evil state.

The one who lacks these qualities of the godly life falls into spiritual blindness, even though he possesses life. He will not only lose sight of coming glories; he will forget the mighty work by which he has been purged from his sins. If we fail to live the life of godliness, we shall lose sight of the coming glory, we shall slip back into the world around us, and fall into the very sins from which we have been cleansed.

For the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ to be unfruitful goes against its very nature. The apostle says the only way it can happen is by forgetting it. It is impossible to live in these things without corresponding fruit. It is impossible to be in the sun without reflecting its beams. If we are not reflecting them, we must have got out of them... A soul in the joy of a Saviour's love would resist an open assault by the enemy. But other things can slowly wean that same soul away from that joy — the call of imagined duties, the necessary occupation with the things of the world, the cares of this life, and the deceitfulness of riches.

How easy it is to drop into a state of spiritual blindness and forgetfulness! No amount of knowledge, either of doctrine or of the letter of Scripture, will preserve the soul from this awful condition. Nothing but "the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ" will avail. This knowledge grows in the soul as we "give all diligence to add to our faith" the various graces the apostle refers to.

He speaks next of making our calling and election sure. But is this not sure already? As far as God, who has called and elected us, is concerned, it is sure. To be conscious of our calling and election, and sure of it, needs diligence. We must walk in the path the Holy Spirit has described so beautifully through the pen of Peter. Those who walk this way will not stumble, and at last, "there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ."

The calling and election is not of us, but of God; but the making it sure is not of God, but of us. The apostle clearly implies too, that if neglected we cannot wonder should we stumble or fall. Let us then challenge ourselves whether or not we are habitually making good what God has done for us.

Calling and election are united in the one thing to be secured, in the security they sought. They could not secure one without the other. They formed one object in the apostle's mind in the diligence he recommended. God had chosen; God had called them. Since God had chosen and called them, the diligence he recommended was to make this settled in their minds, and not uncertain.

"But," you say, "how can we make our calling and election sure?" Who called us? Our Father. Who chose us? Our Father. But this does not do for other people. Who are you to make your calling and election sure with? With the One who called you? The One who chose you? Not a bit, but to yourself, and to everyone who watches you, everyone who could say, "You a called person? You do not look a bit like it. You a chosen person? No one would think so." You are to make it clear to the eyes of everyone else that you have been called of God like this.

Read these verses carefully and notice that we do not read here of "falling away."

In one letter he says, "kept by the power of God through faith to salvation" (1 Peter 1:5). In the next letter he urges us to add to our faith: virtue, knowledge, self-control, patience, godliness, brotherly kindness and love... and says, "If you practice these qualities you will never fall." He always had the memory of his fall in his soul. The man who has fallen and been put right by God is just the one who can help those who may be getting a little astray... The one who has fallen, and been thoroughly broken and restored, is just the one the Lord will trust and use.

The vitality and fruitfulness which mark the diligent believer not only give proof of his calling and election in the present, but are also full of promise for the future. Ahead of us lies "the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ," and though every Christian will enter that kingdom, it is the fruitful Christian who will have an abundant entrance, as verse 11 makes plain.

The "eternal kingdom" is not heaven. No one gains heaven as the result of diligence or fruitfulness; nor do some gain an abundant and others a meagre entrance there. There is no entrance into heaven except through the work of Christ. That work is perfect, and it is available alike to all who believe. So all who enter at all enter in the same way and on the same footing, without distinction.

The place we shall have in heaven will not be based upon our qualities or our efforts; we are accepted in the Beloved if we are accepted at all... But there is the kingdom, pictured in my illustration as the business sphere. The Lord Jesus in that day is going to use His saints in the administration of His kingdom. He is going to give ten cities to one, five cities to another, as stated in that well-known parable in Luke's Gospel. Here there is going to be a difference.

Every believer will be in the kingdom, but only those who live the life of godliness will have an abundant entrance. The Apostle is not speaking of preaching or teaching or the exercise of gifts, which are not given to all, and which may give prominence before others. He is speaking of the secret life of godliness, which is open to all... Those who are gifted, and much before the public eye, have most reason to beware. In the middle of constant engagements, constant preaching, and public work before men, they must not neglect the secret life of godliness before God.

Walking in the ways of God, we have part in that kingdom. We enter it with assurance and without difficulty. We do not feel the hesitation of soul felt by those who grieve the Holy Spirit, get a bad conscience, and allow themselves things that do not fit the character of the kingdom... The way is open before us: we see into the distance, and we go forward, with no obstacles in our way.

He is clearly not speaking of a future entrance, but of what is present. The kingdom is the public sphere of Christianity. Anyone who truly enjoys Christ enters it in an abundant fulness of reality and blessing. He enters now what is everlasting.

Here again it is not a predicted fact that stands out, but the full realisation even now by the soul that walks blamelessly before God... One is in this way able to anticipate in rich measure the eternal kingdom... It is not pictured as a display of glory in reigning over the earth for a thousand years, blessed as that will be, but as what never changes. Scripture also reveals that His servants will serve Him, see His face, and reign for ever and ever.

Will your entrance and mine be an abundant entrance? Shall we enter like a trim and well-fitted ship coming into port in full sail? Shall we rather enter as a battered and tattered wreck? The answer to that is going to be given by each of us in the spiritual diligence — or the spiritual sloth and carelessness — that marks us day by day.

He makes no claim to originality, or to teaching new things. But saints needed reminding of these things. If he did not do it, this would be negligence — a serious thing for every servant of the Lord to take to heart. Saints may know such things, and may even be established in the present truth. Still, they constantly need reminding of things of eternal value.

But in practice believers face influences that damage them. These influences distract the spirit and attract the flesh. So believers are like watches that need winding up again and again. It is not enough to know the present truth and to be established in it. That is why the apostle is always ready to put them in mind of these things.

The apostle clearly knows how quickly we forget the great practical truths of Christianity. Three times in these four verses he speaks of putting the saints in remembrance. Possibly he is thinking of what happened on the resurrection day. The angel said to the disciples, "Remember how he told you." Then we read, "And they remembered his words." The Lord Himself had spoken of these great events, yet they had forgotten what He said.

Cain and Abel were each tested by the truth of sacrifice, urgent in their day, which faith valued and unbelief despised. Enoch and Noah both accepted the older truth. But God tested each of them by what He revealed in their own day, and they stayed faithful to it... The Christian begins with redemption by the blood of the One who gives us eternal life. In every case faith shows its power by taking hold of "the present truth." It still values everything made known before, because all of it was God's doing and God's communicating.

How quickly we forget "the present truth." The devil cares little how much truth we know, so long as he can keep us from being established in "the present truth." That truth is our present standing before God. It is everything given to us that pertains to life and godliness, together with the kingdom glories to which this life leads.

He would take pains, so that after his departure they could call these things to mind at any time. He was providing for them in this way in this letter, and by God's goodness providing for our needs at the same time. How wonderful is the mercy that has given us a plain word which stays within our reach at all times — not tradition, which is uncertain and open to corruption.

But in practice believers meet influences that damage them, distract the spirit and attract the flesh. So they are like watches that need winding up again and again. It is not enough to know and to be established in the present truth.

He makes no claim to originality, or to teaching new things. But the saints needed reminding of these things. If he did not do it, that would be negligence — a serious thing for every servant of the Lord to take to heart. They may know such things. They may even be established in the present truth. Still they constantly need reminding of what has eternal value. The phrase "present truth" surely means what God has revealed in this age of His grace, in contrast to what He revealed before.

Take note of this! We may listen to talks or read articles that contain no truth new to us. Let us not despise them for that. The main work of a teacher may be to teach the truth of Christianity. That truth is old in itself, but it is mostly new to those he teaches. The main work of a pastor or shepherd is to reach the hearts and consciences of believers. He applies to them the things they have been taught. He stirs them up and keeps them alert and watchful. Do not most of us need the second ministry more than the first? Our more urgent need is probably to practise what we already know, rather than to add to what we know.

Every Christian is bound to believe that the great enemy sets himself most against whatever God has in hand now. Anyone who believes that can easily see how important this care for the saints is. It was always so… In every case the power of faith shows itself by taking special hold of "the present truth." It still values everything made known before, because it was all God's doing and God's communicating.

Nor did Peter grow weary of this work of reminding the saints of the truth. He thought it entirely fitting as long as he lived on earth. And life on earth, at its longest, is very brief for any of us. His natural body was only a tabernacle, a temporary tent, which he would shortly put off, according to the Lord's word in John 21:18-19.

As we have seen, the apostle Peter calls death the "putting off of his tabernacle" (2 Peter 1:14). Paul's language is similar, and if comment is needed, it may supply it: "if the earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved" (2 Cor. 5:1). [ESV: "if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed"]

So, as long as he was in the tent of the body, he would seek to do this. He had all the more reason: the Lord Himself had told him he would soon put off his tent… He would therefore be diligent, so that after his departure they could call these things to mind at any time. In this letter he was providing for them. Through God's goodness, he was providing for our needs at the same time. How wonderful is the mercy that has given us something better than tradition, with its uncertainty and its openness to corruption — a plain word that stays within our reach at all times.

We may sometimes think it is not worth going over the same things again and again. Not so Peter. And if our hearts are only put in remembrance of these things, thank God. It will be blessed fruit to our account in the days to come. Do we not need stirring up? We do. Satan does his utmost to hinder our souls.

Nor did Peter grow weary of this ministry of reminding the saints of the truth. He thought it entirely fitting to do so as long as he lived on earth, which at the longest is very brief for any of us. His natural body was only a tabernacle, a temporary tent, which he would shortly put off, according to the Lord's word in John 21:18-19.

As we have seen, the apostle Peter calls death the "putting off of his tabernacle" (2 Peter 1:14). Paul's language is similar, and if comment is needed, it can supply it: "if the earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved" (2 Cor. 5:1).

But the Lord promises Peter that when he is old he will stretch out his hands, and another will tie his belt and carry him where he does not wish to go. So Peter could no longer boast of his own strength or courage. As a helpless old man he would receive a remarkable privilege from God. He would not only die for Christ's sake, which in younger days he had tried to face and failed at shamefully. He would die the very death the Lord had suffered, with its long agony and shame. For the Lord, as we are clearly told, spoke as He did to show not death so much as the kind of death by which Peter was to glorify God. After saying this, He says to him, "Follow Me."

The calmness with which he speaks of his approaching martyrdom, a cruel one, is much to be noted. It was only the putting off of his tabernacle (2 Peter 1). This was not making light of death. If any man ever felt the power of death as wielded by the devil, the terror he can bring by it, and his own utter weakness in its presence, it was Peter. But by the time he wrote his Epistles, Christ had by death brought to nothing the one who had the power of death, and had taken away its sting.

Now Peter looked on to the hour of his death. The Lord Jesus had hinted at his death and the manner of it, as recorded in John 21:18-19. By this time he knew it was to take place shortly. Is it not striking that Peter should need to be told that he is going to die? What a testimony to the fact that not death, but the coming of the Lord, is really the hope of the Christian.

Notice also that the Spirit of God in the word never mentions Peter's death, so that the Church could know anything about it, until he was just at the point of departure. Then Peter says the Lord had told him that he must "put off this tabernacle." Besides, Peter might have died any day. Though he was not a young man when the first epistle appeared, the Spirit of God kept him from writing about it then. So it could not affect the Church's hope.

But in practice believers are exposed to influences so harmful, so distracting to the spirit and so attractive to the flesh, that they are like watches needing to be wound up regularly. It is not enough to know and to be established in the present truth. Hence the apostle's readiness always to remind them of these things (verse 12). Here he repeats it as their urgent need while he lived, and in view of his speedy departure.

He knew that shortly the Lord's words about putting off his earthly tabernacle would be fulfilled (John 21:18-19), and so he commits "the present truth" to writing, so that after his departure we would have the truth in a form always within reach. It is noticeable that he appoints no apostolic successor to maintain the truth, nor does he throw the saints upon the church: he gives them the written word of God as the sole authority for their belief.

The word for death in 2 Peter 1:15 is "decease," literally exodus, "departure": "After my departure."

"Departure" (ἔξοδος): compare Acts 13:34, for Luke's use of εἰσόδος, "entry." The word "exodus" is found again in 2 Peter 1:15.

See what use Peter made of what he knew, and how he practised the diligence he has pressed on others in this chapter. He goes on to press home the reality and certainty of the coming kingdom. He never stops to say just what he planned to do. It is very evident, however, that what he planned and accomplished was the writing of the Epistle that we are now reading. He did it under the guidance and inspiration of the Holy Spirit. By means of it we can now at any time call to mind these things, though Peter's voice is long since silent.

"To have these things always in remembrance." "These things" appear five times. So our souls cannot over-estimate the value and the worth of verses 5, 6, 7, which the apostle points back to five times over. The Lord grant we may have them always in remembrance, yes, have them engraved on the tablets of our hearts. Peter felt there was no apostolic succession, no one to do the work he was doing, after his death. So he says, I leave you my epistle, something that may always be a blessing and a help to your souls.

Peter writes to believers of his own nation, scattered through Pontus. He says, "I will make every effort" — that is, by writing the epistle — "so that after my departure you may be able at any time to recall these things" (2 Peter 1:15). So he commits their future to the guidance of the written word, not to apostolic successors. Paul does the same. He speaks to the elders of the church in Ephesus and warns them of the difficulties and dangers ahead. He says, "And now I commend you to God and to the word of his grace" (Acts 20:32).

Can anything more plainly show the absurdity of trusting tradition, even of early days, when we have the sure light of God's word? Yet all of it justifies our apostle in his zeal. He left nothing for the building up of the saints to such a haphazard channel. He wrote all that was needed to help, guard, and stir them, in words taught by the Spirit. In this way they would come face to face with Him who inspired these exhortations.

Peter wrote to them so that they would be able to return to his letter and receive its help again in the future. The same principle applies to the whole of the Word of God. God has given it to us so that we can turn to it for the instruction or correction we often need. Today we can keep several translations of the Bible on our phones. So Peter's statement is true in the plainest sense: at any time we can call to mind the instruction in God's Word. Do we take advantage of this?

Peter knew that he must soon put off this tent of his body, as the Lord had shown him. With a true shepherd's heart and care he thinks of the Lord's blood-bought sheep. So he would all the more fully warn them, urge them, and remind them, so that after he was gone they might have those things always in remembrance. Though they knew them already, he would still put them in mind, and press on them what would sustain them, leading them on in diligence, so that they might be kept from falling while here.

Peter was writing to people who had cherished the hope of Messiah's kingdom from their fathers' days, and who had lived to see Him rejected and crucified. Were they tempted then to wonder about the prophecies of His glorious and actual kingdom, covering both earth and heaven? Were they only figures of speech — glowing, poetic descriptions of what was after all just a spiritual and invisible state in heaven?

In each Gospel that tells of it, the transfiguration comes right after a promise. Some standing there would not taste death before they saw the kingdom of the Son of Man. And Peter, when speaking of this scene, declares that it was a display of the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He says that the sight of His majesty confirmed the word of prophecy to them, so that they knew what they were talking about... It was a sample of the glory in which He would later come, given to confirm the faith of His disciples in view of His death, which He had just announced to them.

If we turn to Mark 9, we find the Lord saying in verse 1, "there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God after it has come with power." In Matthew 16:28 it is, "until they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom." Third, in Luke 9:30-31, we find Moses and Elijah, "who appeared in glory". Peter speaks of these three marks — the power, the coming and the glory of the Lord — referring to the three different characters of the transfiguration in the Gospels.

Here our apostle testifies to it as one of the chosen three who actually saw the glory and heard the Father's voice about the Son. He uses a word found in the New Testament only in Peter. The word can carry a wide meaning, but it says more than "eyewitness". The Greeks used it for those admitted to the highest level of their secret religious rites.

He had spoken of things seen as well as things heard. The apostles Peter, John and James were together eyewitnesses of the majesty of Christ, the three of them forming a complete witness to His glory. They had known Christ in weakness and humiliation; they saw Him too in His power and majesty. The scene on the mount of transfiguration was a foretaste of His coming, for His coming will be in power and majesty. That power will change our bodies of humiliation into conformity to His body of glory. It is the power by which He is able even to subject all things to Himself (Philippians 3:21).

Look around the Christian world and ask people! Ah, they say, there is no prophecy. They say the book of Isaiah must be cut into three or four parts to get rid of the idea of prophecy. In the second part it names a man like King Cyrus, and nobody, they claim, can speak about a person in advance. It is impossible; there is no prophecy. Cleverly devised myths! they say.

When faith grasps the glory of Christ in the world to come, all the glitter and brightness of this world will fade into darkness. We will then value it at its true worth.

It was not the glory that belongs to Him in Himself. The point was not glory shining out of Him, but glory given to Him. "He received honor and glory from God the Father."

It was the Father's voice out of the excellent glory. "He was still speaking when, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and a voice from the cloud said, 'This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.'" The Father then showed His jealousy for the honour of His Son. He would not allow anyone to put the law-giver or the law-restorer on that level. They were servants, to be honoured in the place He gave them. But His beloved Son! — there were His delights. Christ went down in infinite love to suffer as man, and as man to be exalted. Yet in His Father's eyes the glory of the eternal Son was precious beyond all human thought.

Men heaped dishonour and shame on Christ. In contrast, He received honour and glory from God the Father. All others have come short of the glory. In contrast, here was One whom "the excellent glory" greeted as the beloved Son of the Father. The voice the Apostle heard came from heaven, and all heaven agrees with the Father's delight in Christ. The whole scene lets us into the secret of heaven's delight in Christ, and of how precious the Son is to the Father.

Soon His departure in Jerusalem would prove that the city He wept over saw no beauty in Him to desire. It hid its face from Him, the way people turn away from someone, and treated Him as struck down by God and afflicted. But here the voice out of the glory declares, This is my beloved Son in whom I found My delight. So it had been in eternity before creation. So it was when the world was made by Him, in all the dealings of providence, in the secret working of grace with people, and in the public government of Israel under the law.

Peter, speaking of this scene in 2 Peter 1:16, says it was a display of the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He says that the sight of His majesty confirmed the word of prophecy to them… It was a sample of the glory in which He will come later. It was given to confirm the faith of His disciples, who now faced the death He had just announced to them.

Peter tells us that this voice came from the excellent glory… Now Peter and the others had entered into the cloud. So we get the wonderful fact that saints have the privilege of standing in the glory the voice comes from, and there, in that glory, sharing the delight of the Father in His beloved Son. We are called not only to the fellowship of God's Son, Jesus Christ, but to have fellowship with the Father. God the Father admits us to share His satisfaction in His beloved Son.

To assure them of this, he reminds them of two things. He had seen it himself on the mountain where Jesus was transfigured. He had also heard the voice from the excellent glory: "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." In one word, he had seen and heard, and this is what qualifies a competent witness.

Every part of the scene before their eyes was a magnificent testimony to the future kingdom of the Son of Man. They saw that kingdom on a small scale. Later the Lord will come and set it up in visible grandeur, at its appointed time, before the whole universe. But the emphasis clearly falls on "this voice we heard," carried out of heaven, when we were with Him on the holy mountain.

Men heaped dishonour and shame on Christ. In contrast, He received honour and glory from God the Father. And the voice the Apostle heard came from heaven; all heaven agrees with the Father's delight in Christ. The whole scene lets us into the secret of heaven's delight in Christ. It shows how precious the Son is to the Father. The honour and glory He receives comes "from God the Father", "from the excellent glory", and "from heaven".

The disciples were not in heaven. As one of them says, "we ourselves heard this very voice borne from heaven." They did not enter the cloud of the excellent glory with Moses and Elijah. Yet they saw it, and they have spoken of it. They have testified to us that they have been "eye-witnesses of His Majesty."

The Apostle may well speak of such a spot as "the holy mountain". Above the earth, and apart from the world, God lets us share with the Father in His delight in Christ. It is not what Christ is to sinners: we learn that in the sorrows of the plain below and the sufferings of the cross. Nor is it what Christ is to His tried saints: we learn that in the upper room. On the holy mountain we learn what Jesus is to the Father, to glory, and to heaven.

The voice comes, as Peter says, "from the excellent glory: This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." Notice that in the Gospels God added the words, "Hear him." Peter needed those words then. He was lowering his Master while lifting up Moses and Elijah. He learned his lesson, however, and here, quoting the Father's words, he leaves out "Hear him." By this time he had learned to listen to no voice but the voice of Jesus.

Our apostle leaves out the clause that the Gospel writers carefully record. It is not that he could forget it, or would forget it. He leaves it out to bring forward the Father's good pleasure in Him, His beloved Son.

"We have also a more sure word of prophecy" should be rendered, "We have the word of prophecy made more sure." The word of prophecy is, of course, in the Old Testament. But is it not sure enough already? Why make it more sure? It should be understood as attesting, or confirming, the word of prophecy. The transfiguration confirmed the prophecies in the Old Testament.

On the holy mount God let chosen witnesses see, as a living scene, the central point to which all prophecy tends — the coming and kingdom of our Lord Jesus. Moses represented the dead saints, raised. Elijah represented the saints taken to heaven without dying. And there was the Lord Jesus, the head and centre of all blessedness and glory. Besides, there were saints in natural unchanged bodies: Peter, James and John. The whole group was like a seal, confirming what the prophets had given the people of God to expect.

The word translated "dark" in the original means "squalid" or "filthy." This world, with all its clever inventions and elegant splendour, is only a squalid place in God's sight. Every Christian taught by Him sees it the same way. The only real light in the squalor comes from the lamp of prophecy. Men dream up an empty "millennium" they will produce out of the present filth. The lamp of prophecy brings us into the light of God's purpose and His coming work of both judgment and salvation. It lets us see the squalor of the world that is, and the glory of the world to come.

The power of prophecy is that it lays bare what is going on in the course of this world, and takes it into judgment. If I know that judgment is coming, and that the weeds are to be burned, I shall not have anything to do with the weeds.

Here prophecy is compared to the lamp shining in a squalid place, and the heavenly hope to daylight — above all to the person of Christ as the day-star. Notice it is not "till the day come," or "till the arrival of the day of the Lord." It is "till the day dawn and the day-star arise in your hearts." It is the heart getting hold of the heavenly hope. It is the heart now having Christ as its constant hope, and so in the spirit and light of the day before it shines on the earth by and by.

The lamp is excellent for casting enough light on this dark world, its evil and its doom. They did well to pay attention to it, "till day dawn and a morning star arise in your hearts." That is, until they enjoy the bright heavenly relationship which Christianity, fully understood, gives us now in Christ. And until they hold the heavenly hope of His coming to bring us into the Father's house.

There is a difficulty connected with this verse. One suggested rendering removes it: "We have also the prophetic Word confirmed, to which you do well in taking heed (as to a lamp that shines in an obscure place, until the day dawn and the morning star arises) in your hearts." It does not mean that the morning star is to arise in the heart of the believer. It means that we should take heed to prophecy in our hearts. And how the entire prophetic Word, that blessed lamp, is needed in these darkening days!

"Its own" is the simplest, strictest and most common use of the disputed word, and it is the only sense that fits the context. It is hard to see why the King James Version and the Revised Version chose "private," except that they did not know what to make of it.

No prophecy of Scripture is its own interpreter: you cannot interpret it by taking it on its own. That is the plain translation.

Rome has used the word "private" to hold up its terrible lie that no private individual should ever interpret Scripture. As a result Rome discourages the reading of God's Word in every way... Only the prophetic Word is in view here... In interpreting prophecy, prophetic Scripture must be compared with prophetic Scripture. Prophecy must be taken as a whole.

Taking single texts away from their context has often been disastrous for interpretation, as we all know. But it has nothing at all to do with the so-called "right of private judgment," which is better called the liberty of the soul to hear for itself what the Spirit makes known to everyone.

It is instead a warning against treating each prophetic saying as if it stood alone — a self-contained statement to be interpreted apart from the whole body of prophetic teaching. All prophecy is connected and related, and can only be understood in connection with the whole. It was never spoken by the will of man, but by the inspiration of the Spirit of God. He used different men in different ages, but His one mind runs through it all.

They were all parts of one whole, with one and the same object: the kingdom of God. Each event was a step towards that object, a link in the chain of God's government that led to it. No link can be explained unless you grasp the aim of the whole — the revealed aim of God's counsels in the glory of His Christ.

Local circumstances of the moment give the occasion for a prophecy, but it forms part of a great whole, and Christ the King is the centre of that whole. Taking it on its own is like cutting a branch off a magnificent tree that it belongs to.

He does not deny that many a prophecy had its scope only in one particular, passing event important enough to call for it... Take the dreams of Pharaoh in Genesis, and of his two officials before that. Take the prophecies of Agabus in the book of Acts about the famine and about the apostle Paul. Many such prophecies are recorded in the Old Testament. Yet none of them is a prophecy of Scripture in the sense meant here.

Those who look for prophecy to be fulfilled before the Lord comes for us miss the joy of waiting for Christ. They see a close likeness between a prophecy and some passing event, but they do not know what it is to watch for the bright and morning star.

The will of man could never produce prophecy. Only God knows the future, and He has spoken about the future.

Man's will resists all this. Even if it were ever so eager to help, who is able except God to take in a range so vast, deep, and high? So the only possible power is that of the Holy Spirit. In His great love for man's blessing, God chose to tell us beforehand of those coming glories of Christ, just as through holy men He also predicted His sufferings.

Notice how verse 21 speaks of inspiration. "Holy men of God" spoke and wrote "moved by" or "borne along by" the Holy Spirit. They put their pens to paper under His power, so He is the real Author of what they wrote.

Those who wrote the books of the Bible were holy men of God, acknowledged by Him as His instruments. Moses was such a man of God (Psalm 90:1), as was Elijah, who could say, "the LORD... before whom I stand" (1 Kings 17:1). They stood before God, conscious that He was constantly looking on them.

By the Holy Spirit He moved them to speak far above the measure of their understanding. They took no place of authority, but in the lowliness of faith searched their own writings, wanting to find God's interpretation of them (1 Peter 1:10-12).

He brings down the exalted one and lifts up the lowly one, putting them on one common level. He uses them as He finds them, making them the channels of His thoughts and not their own. Yet here is the remarkable fact: He never does violence to their individual character. Peter remains Peter and Moses remains Moses. Their abilities show in their writings. Their style is there. Everything there speaks of the man, yet nothing there fails to speak of God.

It is a distortion of the truth to say that the writers were inspired, but not the writings. If 2 Peter 1:21 supports the first, the claim for the second is even more explicit and directly to the point in 2 Timothy 3:16... Not only were the men inspired, but so, according to the apostle Paul, is the result.

In 2 Peter 1:21 we get the claim in definite terms... for surely if the spoken prophecies were inspired, their being written down would not be less authoritative.

If man had no part in originating prophecy, then certainly mere man is not the interpreter of it.

No single prophecy must be read alone, as if it stood apart from the rest. Read each one in connection with the whole plan of it in the Word. "For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man" — so it is not the expression of the many minds of men. "But men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit" — there is One perfect mind throughout it.