Day 7 A Different Life

A Different Life

Simon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ. To those who through the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ have received a faith as precious as ours. Grace and peace be yours in abundance through the knowledge of God and Jesus our Lord   2 Peter 1:1,2

Peter begins with his credentials. He is both an ‘apostle of Jesus Christ,’ stressing his oneness with Christ, and ‘a servant … of Jesus Christ,’ stressing his oneness with his readers.

To those who … have received a faith as precious as ours.’ There is no distinction between believers. We all owe our standing to the gracious pardon granted to each one of us through Christ. God’s kingdom doesn’t grade believers into different classes of “worthiness.” We stand together. The ‘faith’ we share is our common trust in Christ.

This equality of opportunity and status is ours because of ‘the righteousness of our God’ which refuses to distinguish between any who receive His mercy and love. The emphasis is on the justice and fairness of God.

The phrase ‘our God and Savior Jesus Christ’ is grammatically referring to a single Person of the Godhead. In other words, Peter is calling Jesus “God.” If he had wanted to make a distinction between the Father and the Son, he would have used the same construction he uses in the very next verse where he writes of ‘the knowledge of God and Jesus our Lord.’ Further, there are four cases in this letter where Peter uses the similar wording ‘our Lord and Saviour’  (1:11; 2:20; 3:2,18) and each clearly refer to one person, to Christ alone. The early Christians were utterly convinced that Jesus embodied God but were careful not to say there were two (or three) Gods.

Peter uses the term ‘Saviour’ here because in the next section he will build an emphatic case for growth in godly character and against ungodly license because his readers have found salvation. We belong to a God who saves. This is the conviction of the Bible from beginning to end. ‘Saviour’ is one of the great names for God in the Old Testament and Peter is quite bold in taking this name for Yahweh and applying it to Jesus (as he also did on the day of Pentecost so many years earlier in Acts 2:21).

Grace and peace be yours in abundance.’ Grace and peace were the respective Greek and Hebrew greetings but Peter adds ‘through the knowledge of God and Jesus our Lord.’ So grace and peace are magnified as our knowledge of the Father and the Son is magnified. This puts in mind Jesus’ own extraordinary statement ‘Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent’ (John 17:3). Neither grace nor peace should ever be separated from the God who gives them.

Peter is writing to people who claimed a real knowledge of God the Father and of Christ, but some of whom continued in immoral behaviour. They could well have claimed this knowledge but Peter wants a clear understanding of the fruits this knowledge brings. A true knowledge of God the Father and the Son produces grace and peace. In the next verse he will include godliness (1:3).

A Christian is someone who has come to trust the Savior for their salvation. Any profession of faith that makes no difference in a personal life is a contradiction.

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