2 Peter 1 Bible Commentary

1:1 Simon ¹ Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ, to them that have obtained like precious faith with us through the ^a righteousness of God and our Saviour Jesus Christ:

(1) A greeting, in which he gives them to understand that he deals with them as Christ's ambassadors, and otherwise agrees with them in the same faith which is grounded on the righteousness of Jesus Christ, our God and Saviour.
(a) In that God, in standing by his promises, showed himself faithful, and therefore just to us.
1:2 Grace and peace be multiplied unto you ² through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord,

(2) Faith is the acknowledging of God and Christ, from which all our blessedness issues and flows.

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.

1:4 ⁴ Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the ^e divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.

(4) An explanation of the former sentence, declaring the causes of so great benefits, that is, God and his free promise, from which all these benefits proceed, I say, these most excellent benefits, by which we are delivered from the corruption of this world, (that is, from the wicked lusts which we carry about in us) and are made like God himself.
(e) By the divine nature he means not the substance of the Godhead, but the partaking of those qualities, by which the image of God is restored in us.

1:5 ⁵ And beside this, giving all diligence, ^h add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge;

(5) Having laid the foundation (that is, having declared the causes of our salvation and especially of our sanctification) now he begins to exhort us to give our minds wholly to the true use of this grace. He begins with faith, without which nothing can please God, and he warns us to have it fully equipped with virtue (that is to say, with good and godly manners) being joined with the knowledge of God's will, without which, there is neither faith, neither any true virtue.
(h) Supply also, and support or aid.

1:6 ⁶ And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness;

(6) He brings up certain and other principal virtues, of which some pertain to the first table of the law, others to the last.

1:8 ⁷ For if these things be in you, and abound, they make [you that ye shall] neither [be] barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

(7) As those fruits do spring from the true knowledge of Christ, so in like sort the knowledge itself is fostered and grows by bringing forth such fruits, in so much that he that is unfruitful, did either never know the true light, or has forgotten the gift of sanctification which he has received.

1:9 But he that lacketh these things is blind, and (i) cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins.

(i) He that has not an effectual knowledge of God in him, is blind concerning the kingdom of God, for he cannot see things that are afar off, that is to say, heavenly things.

1:10 ⁸ Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure: for if ye do these things, ye shall never fall:

(8) The conclusion: Therefore seeing our calling and election is approved by those fruits, and is confirmed in us, and moreover seeing this is the only way to the everlasting kingdom of Christ, it remains that we set our minds wholly on that way.

1:12 ⁹ Wherefore I will not be negligent to put you always in remembrance of these things, though ye know [them], and be established in the present truth.

(9) An amplifying of the conclusion joined with a modest excuse, in which he declares his love towards them, and tells them of his death which is at hand.

1:13 Yea, I think it meet, as long as I am in this ^k tabernacle, to stir you up by putting [you] in remembrance;

(k) In this body.

1:16 ¹⁰ For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty.

(10) Another amplification taken from both the great certainty and also the excellency of his doctrine, of which our Lord Jesus Christ the Son of God is author, whose glory the apostle both saw and heard.

1:19 ¹¹ We have also a more sure word of prophecy; ¹² whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day ^l dawn, and the ^m day star arise in your hearts:

(11) The truth of the gospel is by this revealed, in that it agrees wholly with the foretellings of the prophets.
(12) The doctrine of the apostles does not contradict the doctrine of the prophets, for they confirm each other by each others testimonies, but the prophets were like candles which gave light to the blind, until the brightness of the gospel began to shine.
(l) A more full and open knowledge, than was under the shadows of the law.
(m) That clearer doctrine of the gospel.

1:20 ¹³ Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the ⁿ scripture is of any ^o private interpretation.

(13) The prophets are to be read, but so that we ask of God the gift of interpretation, for he who is the author of the writings of the prophets, is also the interpreter of them.
(n) He joins the Scripture and prophecy together, to distinguish true prophecies from false.
(o) For all interpretation comes from God.

1:21 For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but ^p holy men of God spake [as they were] ^q moved by the Holy Ghost.

(p) The godly interpreters and messengers.
(q) Inspired by God: their actions were in very good order, and not as the actions of the profane soothsayers, and foretellers of things to come.