Grace and peace be multiplied to you in [the] knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.
Peter opens this letter with a greeting that sounds routine, yet he writes to believers facing false teachers and a predicted turning away from the faith. The question is practical: how does a Christian get more grace and more peace?
One writer defines both words by what they do when trouble grows:
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.
Another writer starts from where the believer already stands:
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.
The word "multiplied" is rare in New Testament greetings, and where it appears matters:
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.
So what does this knowing do for a believer? One writer names both a support and a safeguard:
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 Greek word behind "knowledge" here is not the ordinary one. The prefix makes the difference:
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."
But this fuller knowledge carries a warning. One writer puts it bluntly:
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.
You might expect the safeguard against false teachers to be a close study of their errors. One writer points elsewhere:
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.
So how does the increase actually come? One writer ties it to the daily walk:
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.
- Knowledge — the channel. Grace and peace grow in knowing God and Jesus our Lord. Nothing else can take its place.
- Knowledge — the depth. This is not casual acquaintance. It is a deeper, more intimate knowing, and it guards faith from deceivers.
- Knowledge — the counterfeit. The same full knowledge can sit in an unchanged heart and puff up rather than build up; 2 Peter 2:20-22 shows where that ends.
- Knowledge — the growth. The multiplying keeps pace with the walk: closeness to Christ day by day is what increases the supply.
- Knowledge — the shield. In an age of turning away, safety lies not in mastering the errors but in knowing the Shepherd's voice.
As his divine power has given to us all things which relate to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that has called us by glory and virtue,
Peter opens his last letter with what believers already have. God's own power has given them everything they need for life and godliness. Two questions follow. What does "all things" include? And what does it mean that God calls us by, or to, His own glory and excellence?
One writer names some of what God has given, and stresses that nothing is left out:
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.
Another writer counts trial and sorrow as part of that supply:
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.
These two words are not a repetition:
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.
Another writer traces the order: life first, then likeness:
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.
One writer ties this power to what faith knows of God:
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.
Older translations read "by glory and virtue" here. Writers who follow that reading take glory as the goal set before us, and virtue as courage:
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.
Another writer draws out the practical pull of both words together, noting they were rendered "by God's own glory and by virtue":
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.
Adam, the first man, was never called in this way:
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.
Three powers stand against the believer, and one stands far above them:
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.
- Power — the starting point is God's own power, not ours. It works in us and gives us all we need for life and godliness.
- Provision — the gift is all things, not some: the Spirit, the Word, access to God, and even trial as the road where we live that life out.
- Pair — life is God's side, the spring; godliness is our side, the likeness to Him that shows.
- Path — we reach that power by knowing Him; the call comes by glory ahead and courage for the road.
- Purpose — with flesh, world and devil against us, no believer can plead lack. Nothing is missing on God's part.