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In considering the authorship of this letter there are three points of internal evidence to take note of. First, the author of this letter identifies himself as Simon Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, in the very first verse.
Secondly, in 2 Peter 1:16-18 the author says,
For we did not follow cleverly devised stories when we told you about the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ in power, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. He received honor and glory from God the Father when the voice came to him from the Majestic Glory, saying, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.” We ourselves heard this voice that came from heaven when we were with him on the sacred mountain.
Thus, the author of this letter claims to be an eyewitness of the transfiguration of Jesus.
Thirdly, in 2 Peter 3:1, the author refers to this as his second letter, suggesting a connection between this letter and 1 Peter.
In addition to the internal evidence for Peter’s authorship of this letter, we must consider the external evidence. 2 Peter was not widely known or recognized in the early church. 1 Clement, written around 95 CE, may refer to 2 Peter. Some churches may have used and accepted this letter in the second century. But this letter was not ascribed to Peter until the time of Origen, who lived from 185 to 253 CE. Eusebius, who lived from 265 to 340 CE, placed 2 Peter among the disputed books of the New Testament, though he admitted that most accepted it as written by Peter the Apostle. Athanasius was the first to accept 2 Peter without question around the year 367 CE.
In modern times many scholars have questioned the authorship of this letter. They note that the style is very different from that of 1 Peter. Others argue that the reference to Paul’s letters (in 2 Peter 3:15-16) indicates a later date for this book, after the death of Peter. However, Bible scholar Michael Green, in his commentary on 2 Peter, has offered a careful refutation of every objection to Petrine authorship.[1] And no less a scholar than N. T. Wright has said …
Some people doubt that it was written by Peter himself, but several parts of it indicate that it is indeed supposed to come from him in some sense, even if he didn’t physically write it himself.[2]
DATE
If this letter was indeed written by the Apostle Peter, or by his secretary, as I believe it was, then the letter should be dated shortly after the writing of 1 Peter and just prior to Peter’s execution under Nero, somewhere between 64 and 67 CE.
THEMES
Whereas Peter’s first letter offered his readers hope in the face of persecution from outside the church, this second letter encourages the readers to increase in knowledge to combat false teachers who have infiltrated the church. In both letters Peter acts as a pastor encouraging his readers to live the way Jesus has called them to live. Thus, the author touches on numerous themes having to do with Christian growth and he encourages his readers to be prepared for Christ’s second coming. 2 Peter 3:18 could be considered a theme verse for the entire letter… “But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”
STRUCTURE
The structure of 2 Peter works out like this…
- Introduction (1:1-2)
- Encouragement to Growth in the Context of Grace (1:3-11)
- The Purpose and Authentication of Peter’s Message (1:12-21)
- Warning Against False Teachers (2)
- The Fact of Christ’s Return (3:1-16)
- Concluding Remarks (3:17-18)
KEY CONCEPT: PUT “DO” INSIDE “DONE”
In 1982, I visited Oxford, England for the first time and attended a worship service at St. Aldates where The Reverend Dr. Michael Green was the pastor at that time. He preached on 2 Peter 1 in a way that riveted this passage into my mind and heart from that day until now. As Tom Wright has said of 2 Peter, “Every sentence, every word almost, glitters and flashes. Every idea beckons and says, ‘Look at me! This is fascinating!’”[3] Those words express my own reaction to 2 Peter, and especially to the following passage from chapter 1…
His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.
For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But whoever does not have them is nearsighted and blind, forgetting that they have been cleansed from their past sins.
Therefore, my brothers and sisters, make every effort to confirm your calling and election. For if you do these things, you will never stumble, and you will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Some people seem to think that Christianity is all about “do’s and don’ts”. “Do this. Don’t do that.” I will grant you, there are a lot of statements like that in the New Testament. But like everything in the Bible, we must read these statements in context to understand them rightly. This passage in 2 Peter 1, gives us the big picture that helps us understand the “do’s and don’ts” in context.
What Peter does is that he puts the “do” inside a “done”, sort of like a sandwich. The “done” is the bun, or the bread on the outside of the sandwich. The “do” is the meat inside the bun. And by “done” I mean that Peter shows us what God has already “done” for us, and it is inside of the “done” bits that we are called to the “do” bits. There are four things that God has done for us, highlighted in this passage, and then one thing that we are called to do.
First “DONE”: God has already given us everything we need.
Peter tells us that God’s “divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.”
Think of it! God has given us a starter kit for life. And that starter kit has everything we need in it to live a life that pleases God.
Second “DONE”: God has given us his own nature to share.
Peter says, “Through these [that is through God’s glory and goodness] God has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature.”
It’s important to understand what Peter is saying and not saying here. He is not saying that we simply get absorbed into the divine, the way Eastern religions talk about being absorbed into Oneness. The classic example from Eastern religion is that of a drop of water being absorbed into the ocean. That is not what happens to us according to the New Testament. The New Testament gives us a different picture: of God sending his Holy Spirit into our souls so that we share in God’s divine nature without losing our own distinct personalities.
Third “DONE”: God has called and chosen us.
In verse 10 Peter says, “Therefore, my brothers and sisters, make every effort to confirm your calling and election.”
Notice, God has already called you to himself through Christ. God has already chosen to adopt you as his child. This is one of the themes common to both 1 and 2 Peter.
Fourth “DONE”: God has already set up his kingdom.
Peter says, “For if you do these things, you will never stumble, and you will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”
The kingdom of God is not something we have to create or build. God has already established his kingdom, his sovereign rule over heaven and earth. Yes, Jesus has taught us to pray, “Thy kingdom come.” But the Gospels also show us the kingdom coming near in the presence of the king who is Jesus. And that same Jesus tells us that the kingdom of God is among us and in us. The kingdom is not something we have to achieve, but rather an already existing reality that we can come to know through the Holy Spirit.
One “DO”: God wants us to add to our faith.
When I was at Princeton Seminary in the 1980s, I had to take speech classes as part of my Master of Divinity degree course. As someone who was a drama major in college, I loved it. But at times it could be challenging. On one occasion, I had to preach a sermon I had written to my speech instructor, alone, in a sound-proof room. To add to the intensity of the moment, my speech instructor was a professional actress and very beautiful. How do you preach to one person who is incredibly beautiful, while looking them in the eye, but not looking at them too long in the eye? Well, I got through that exercise somehow, and after I was finished preaching, my instructor sat me down and gave me her response. I was so scared. But she immediately put me at my ease. Instead of telling me what was wrong with my sermon, she suggested things to add. She raised questions like…
- Why don’t you try moderating your pace here?
- How about looking at your sermon in terms of movement, verbs, gestures, and images?
- What colors does this part of the sermon make you think of?
Now, I tell you that story to make this point… Peter does the same sort of thing here in this first chapter of his letter. Rather than criticize our faith, he suggests things to add to it. There are seven virtues in total that Peter encourages us to add to our faith…
1. Goodness
There are only five occurrences of this word in the Greek New Testament. The word in Greek is ἀρετή and refers to moral excellence, or what in Latin is called virtue. Out of the five occurrences in the New Testament, two are right here in this same passage. Peter talks about God who has called us to himself by his own glory and goodness. It is the glory and goodness of God in Christ that attracts us to him. And now Peter tells us that the same goodness that is in God needs to be added to our faith. We are to become like God by sharing in his divine nature. If goodness was something we had to achieve by our own power, we would be hopelessly lost. But it isn’t. The goodness of God is a goodness he shares with us so that we can grow into it.
2. Knowledge
The second thing we need to add to our faith is knowledge. “Fides quaerens intellectum” is a Latin slogan representing the theological method stressed by St. Augustine in the fourth century and St. Anselm of Canterbury in the eleventh century. Translated into English it means “faith seeking understanding”. The idea is that we must begin by faith and then seek understanding. Of course, our faith is not a blind faith. It is based upon certain facts. But I think what Augustine and Anselm had in mind is that we do not begin our Christian journey knowing everything. We begin by trusting in Christ and then we continue to seek knowledge throughout our journey.
St. Francis famously prayed, “O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek … to be understood as to understand…”
3. Self-Control
Self-control is a mastery that comes from within. It proceeds from within oneself but not by oneself. It is accomplished only by the power of the Lord. Paul calls it a fruit of the Holy Spirit in Galatians 5.
4. Perseverance
This is a Greek word we have seen over and again in our study of the New Testament. The word is ὑπομονῇ and is sometimes translated as patience. But perseverance is really a better translation. This is an inner strength that comes from God and helps us to keep going when the going gets tough.
5. Godliness
I mentioned the first church historian, Eusebius, earlier in this message. His name is a derivative of the Greek word used by 2 Peter to denote godliness. Imagine trying to even get through second grade if your name was “Godly”. I wonder if Eusebius’ classmates teased him by bowing down before him. Eusebius’ parents surely laid a load of expectation on him by giving him that name.
I think part of our modern reaction against this word “godly” has to do with the fact that we tend to think of godliness as something that is put on, a holier-than-thou attitude. But real godliness is the exact opposite of this. Real godliness cannot be put on. It begins with an inner attitude of reverence and devotion toward God that then overflows into an outward demonstration of worship. Godliness flows out of a proper relationship with God through Christ.
6. Mutual affection
The Greek word is φιλαδελφία. It literally means “brotherly love”. The city of Philadelphia derives its name from this word.
In Greek there are at least four key words for love and one of them is φίλος. It is the friendship kind of love. The classic stance of friendship is walking side by side. Whereas the classic stance of Eros is that of lovers gazing into one another’s eyes.
The word φίλος is used twenty-nine times in the New Testament. The word φιλαδελφία is used just six times and two of those uses are in 2 Peter. As Christians we are called to love one another with brotherly love because we are part of the same family, the family of God in Christ.
7. Love
But we are also called to have a love for one another that goes beyond mere friendship, and even beyond brotherly love. We are called as Christians to have ἀγάπη for one another. This word is used 116 times in the New Testament and is the word for love par excellence. It is the key word that is used to describe God’s love for us, and it is the kind of love we are to model in our relationships with one another. Agape goes beyond erotic love, friendship love, affectionate kind of love. It is a love that is not dependent upon any quality in the person whom we love. God loves us in spite of our sin. God loves us because it is in his nature to love us. His love is not simply unconditional, it is contra-conditional. And we are called to have the same love for one another. The only way we can begin to live out this kind of love is if we have God living in us and loving through us. This kind of love is impossible on our own power.
I know this is a lot to take in, all in one message, all of these virtues we need to add to our faith. So, if you forget everything else, just remember this… always put the Do inside the Done. Remember that everything and anything we do as Christians that has any lasting value at all flows out of God’s grace. And so, I urge you, as Peter does at the end of this letter… “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and forever! Amen.”
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