2 Peter 1
McGeeCHAPTER 1THEME: Addition of Christian graces gives assurance; authority of the Scriptures attested by fulfilled prophecyAs I mentioned in the Introduction, this marvelous little epistle is the “swan song” of the apostle Peter; that is, it is his final word to believers before his death by crucifixion. He warns them of the apostasy which is coming, particularly of the heresy among teachers, and he seeks to anchor their faith on the Scriptures as the only defense against the coming storm. In the first fourteen verses of this chapter, we shall see that the full “knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord” is the foundation on which Christian character is built.
2 Peter 1:1
ADDITION OF CHRISTIAN GRACES GIVES ASSURANCEWhen we run across that little word precious in this very first verse we recognize it as Peter’s wordhe uses it several times in his first epistle, and he is the only writer of Scripture who uses it in this sense. It is like being able to recognize the handwriting on a letter. It is like seeing Simon Peter’s signature when we see the word precious here. “Simon Peter” is the way he begins this second letter. In his first epistle he simply used the name Peter. Simon was the name given to him at his birth, but Peter, meaning “rock,” is the name our Lord Jesus gave to him. He uses both names in this epistle. Simon, the man of weakness, and Peter, the man of strength, the wishy-washy man and the rock-manhe has been both. But as he writes this epistle, we may be sure of one thing: he is the rock-man now, the man who is to be crucified for Christ. “Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle.” The word servant actually means “bond slave.” He doesn’t take an exalted position in the church. He refers to himself as a bond slavealso an apostle (that is his authority), but notice that he does not say the apostle, but an apostle; he was only one of them. “To them that have obtained like precious faith with us.” What he is saying here is quite wonderful. When he uses the word faith, I think he means the body of truth which we call the gospel. He is saying, “You have received it, and it is up to you what you do with it.” Those who hold what I call a hyper-Calvinistic viewpoint say that you have to be chosen before you can be saved and that God has to give you the faith to believe. Well, I’ll go along with part of that, but I also insist that the reason some folk don’t come to Christ is made clear for us in the Word of God. Notice 2Co_3:15-16: “But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the veil is upon their heart. Nevertheless when it shall turn to the Lord, the veil shall be taken away.” When it says that “it” shall turn to the Lord, what is “it”? Well since the antecedent is the word heart, it is saying that when the heart shall turn to the Lord, the veil shall be taken away. My friend, if you are not a believer today, don’t say it is because you have some mental reservations.
The fact is that you have some sinful reservations. When the heart will turn to the Lord, then He will lift the veil. Anytime you are ready, God is ready, and He will save you. It is not God’s will that any should perish. Today it is “whosoever will may come” and “…God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (Joh_3:16, italics mine). All He asks you to do is believe.
He doesn’t even ask you to clean up before you come to Himbut He will clean you up if you really mean business with Him. They “have obtained like precious faith"how? “Through the righteousness of God and our Saviour Jesus Christ.” This is the righteousness which is made over to us when we trust Christ as Savior. You see, He not only subtracts our sin, He also adds to us His own righteousness. We are not like criminals who have been pardoned and turned loose; we have been given a standing before God, and that standing is in Christaccepted in the beloved!
2 Peter 1:2
“Grace and peace be multiplied.” Grace and peace are always in this order. We must first know the grace of Godthat God has saved us, not through our merit, our character, or anything in us, but He has saved us because of our faith in Christ. Because He loved us enough to die for us on the Cross to pay the penalty of our sins, it is possible for Him to reach down and save us. Therefore, my friend, God saves you by grace. He saves you when you simply trust Christ, with no merit on your part. Once we experience God’s grace, we can experience the peace of God also. This is what Paul is saying in his Epistle to the Romans: “Therefore being justifed by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom_5:1). Again let me say that we cannot consider Simon Peter an ignorant fisherman. As we see in his first epistle, he deals with more doctrine in a brief letter than any other New Testament writer. He takes up all controversial matters and handles them in a masterful way. And he is a New Testament writer who uses arithmetic. He says, “Grace and peace be multiplied"he is talking about multiplication. Paul didn’t go into mathematics. He said that God is rich in grace and that the peace of God passes all understanding, but Simon Peter gets down to where the rubber meets the road. He takes out the multiplication table and says, “I hope grace and peace will be multiplied unto you.” How wonderful this is. He doesn’t just leave it there. How will “grace and peace be multiplied unto you”? Will it be through some vision you have? Oh, no"through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.” Now we are back to this word knowledge. We will be seeing it again and again in this epistle because of its importance. Paul also emphasizes this. Writing to the Philippians, he said, “That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings …” (Php_3:10)oh, to know Him! Christianity is a Person. We are not only to believe Him but also to know Him, my friend. He is the living Savior who right at this moment is at God’s right hand. It was the prophet Daniel who wrote, “…but the people that do know their God shall be strong, and do exploits” (Dan_11:32). My friend, you are not going to do anything for God in the way of service until you know Jesus Christ. How does this knowledge come to you? Well, Peter won’t leave you in doubt; he won’t let you hang in midair. When he gets through with this epistle, you will know that the knowledge of Jesus Christ comes through a knowledge of the Word of God, the sure Word of God. To illustrate what Peter is meaning by the knowledge of God, let me use the example of a well-known man who is no longer living. Suppose someone were to ask me, “Do you know the late President Eisenhower?” I would answer, “No, I never knew him.” “But you certainly heard about him.” “Yes.” “And you have seen him.” “Yes, I even saw him play golf once. I watched him hit the ball one time, but then the Secret Service men glared at me; so I had to get out of the territory. I did see him hit the ball, and the interesting thing is that he didn’t do much better than I do. But I cannot really say that I knew him.” “If he were living today and were to walk right into your study, do you think you would know him?” “I think I would recognize him but I can’t say that I would know him. I never knew how he felt about things. I suppose that Mrs. Eisenhower and his other loved ones knew him, but I never knew him.” When Peter writes, “Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord,” he uses the Greek word epignosis, meaning “super knowledge.” It is a knowledge which comes by the Holy Spirit’s taking the things of Christ and making them real to us. My friend, I believe that you can know Jesus Christ better than you can know your closest loved one. And you can tell Him things that you would not dare tell your closest loved one. The important thing is that to know Him is life eternal. To know Him in this way, we first have to be born again, as Peter says, “…not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever” (1Pe_1:23). I remember hearing the late Dr. Herbert Bieber make the statement that after he was saved, he went to seminary to find out what had happened to him. That’s good, and it reveals that you can trust Him and still not really know His Word.
2 Peter 1:3
“His divine power” has given to us all of the things which you and I need to live life to the full. I don’t know about you, but I have always wanted to live it up. I don’t mean that I have wanted to go out and paint the town redyou run out of paint when you attempt that sort of thing. But “his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness.” Don’t say that God has not made an arrangement for you to live for Him. He has made every arrangement for our life in Christ and our godliness of life for Him. “Through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue.” Again we see this word knowledge. It is only through the knowledge of Christ that you can really learn to live down here and grow to be a more godly person. The only way in the world that you can become the kind of person with a fully developed personality is through knowing Jesus Christ. The knowledge of Him that “hath called us to glory” means to be like Christ. “And virtue"virtue means something more than we commonly think it means. I have spent a great deal of time with some of the words Peter uses because of their importance. The word virtue is not confined to chastity. We use it today when we refer to a woman being virtuous or morally chaste. Actually, virtue as Peter uses it has to do with excellence and courage. It means that you have the courage to excel in life.
You don’t have to live a little, mousy Mr. Milquetoast life and be a yes-man to everything that comes along. You can stand on your own two feet, state your position, and be counted for God. We certainly need that kind of “virtue” in this hour in which we are living, and the only way we can get it is through the knowledge of Christ. This is the formula Peter is giving to us here: “through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue.”
2 Peter 1:4
Now why would Simon Peter call promises “precious”? In the first verse he talks about the precious faith that we have; now he talks about the precious promises that have been given to us. My friend, there have been given to you and me some glorious, wonderful promises here in the New Testament. Peter calls them “exceeding great and precious promises.” For example: “…him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out” (Joh_6:37); and “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Mat_11:28)the rest of redemption. “Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls” (Mat_11:29)that’s the rest of commitment of your heart and life to Christ. And another promise: “Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (Joh_14:6). Another wonderful promise is that of eternal life: “He that hath the Son hath life …” (1Jn_5:12). “Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever” (1Pe_1:23). All these wonderful promises come through a knowledge of Jesus Christ and by faith in Him. “That by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature,” that is, that you might be a child of God! What a tremendous truth this is. This is overwhelming! When you are born again, you are given the nature of God, my friend. Don’t let anybody deceive you into thinking that the Christian life is a little series of dos and don’tsthat if you do this and don’t do that, you are living the Christian life. Oh, my friend, you are a partaker of the divine nature, the nature of God, and you want the things of God. “Having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.” This in itself is a tremendous statement. A little later Peter will speak of the make-believers who have escaped the pollutions of the world. What a difference there is between escaping the pollutions of the world and escaping the corruption of the world. The corruption of the world is that which is within us. The pollution of the world is that which is on the outside. At the time I am writing this, a great deal is being said about the antipollution programs. The feeling is that if we clean up the environment, it will produce nicer people. Well, it won’t do a thing for the old nature, my friend. Religious people go through an antipollution program on Sundays. They participate in a little ritual, a little washing, a little of this and a little of that. My friend, you can be religious to your fingertips and still be as corrupt as anyone can possibly be. Some folk that you see on Sunday don’t look like the same folk when you see them on Monday. Why? Well, they have been through only an antipollution program on Sunday. If you are going to escape the corruption of the world, you will have to have a new nature. You will need to be a partaker of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. However, although you have the nature of God through being born again, that doesn’t mean that you have lost your old nature. There is a continuing conflict in the life of a believer between his new nature and his old nature. The best illustration of this in Scripture is that which our Lord gave us when He told the parable of the prodigal son (see Luk_15:11-32). Notice that the son could go to the far country because he still had an old nature. He could spend his money in riotous living, and he could even get down in the pigpen. But, you see, he was a partaker of the nature of his father, and his father didn’t live in a pigpen. His father lived up there in a wonderful mansion. His father believed in godliness and cleanliness, and there was nourishing food on his table. Now, that boy wouldn’t have been his son if eventually he hadn’t said, “I will arise and go to my father …” (Luk_15:18). He had to say it. You couldn’t find a pig in the pigpen that would say that. Not one of those pigs went with him to his father’s house. I read an article the other day by a man who raises pigs, and he claimed that they are clean little fellows. Well, he evidently has a breed of pigs which I know nothing about. However, we will see in 2Pe_2:22 that a pig can get washed and cleaned up. Although he may become a tidy little fellow, even join a church, and become a deacon or a minister in the pulpit, he is still a pig and will eventually return to that pigpen. But the son is a partaker of the nature of his father, and he will eventually return to his father’s house. My friend, when you and I are children of God, we have the nature of God. Isn’t that wonderful! We can understand God when He speaks through His Word and the Spirit of God makes it real to us. But Peter doesn’t stop with this, he goes on to say, “And beside this….” I feel like saying to Simon Peter, “What in the world can you add to the promises of the Lord Jesus Christ and the fact of our being partakers of the divine nature?” I think that Simon Peter would answer, “Well, when you get that far, you have only started. There is a great deal beyond salvation.” Perhaps it will surprise you to know that there is something beyond salvation. You may recall that Paul said to Timothy that the Scriptures “…are able to make thee wise unto salvation …” (2Ti_3:15). Since Timothy was already saved, what does Paul mean by that? Well, salvation is in three tenses. Salvation is in the past tense: “I have been saved.” It is also in the present tense: “I am being saved.” And it is in the future tense: “I shall be saved"“Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is” (1Jn_3:2). I am not like the Lord Jesus nowI have not yet arrivedbut I am in the process. Now Peter is going to talk to us about Christians maturing. After a person is born again, he should not stay in the crib saying, “Da-da-da” the rest of his life. Nor should he need to be burped every so often. He should get to the place where he begins to grow up.
2 Peter 1:5
“And beside this, giving all diligence.” The Christian life is a very serious business. However, we have made it sort of an extracurricular activity. The present-day thinking is that it is not something to be taken into the business world or the schoolroom or into social life. Rather, it is something sort of like your Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes which you wear only at certain times. However, Peter said that it is something to which we are to give “all diligence.” When Peter lists these graces which are to be added to our faith, they are not like a series of beads that you count off. Nor are they like a stack of dominoes which you stand on end in a long line, then when you push the first domino down, all the others fall down in a line. It is not like that at all. Neither is it like placing one brick upon another in building a structure. I know that Peter, in his first epistle, uses the figure of living stones being built up into a “spiritual house,” but remember that all the stones were living stones. Rather, the Christian life is a growth. This is the way Peter explains it in this epistle which closes with the tremendous statement, “Grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ” (2Pe_3:18). A familiar illustration is that of a growing tree. You know the old proverb that great oaks from little acorns grow. (Sometimes we turn it around and say, “Great aches from little toe corns grow,” but that is a different matter!) I am sure that you have watched a tree grow. I have a little redwood tree which was given to me by a dear lady who had previously lived in Oregon. It was just a little, bitty fellow in a can when she brought it to me.
I didn’t have a place for it at the time; so I just put it down in front of our living room window, intending to move it sometime. Well, the years went by, and that little six-inch tree is now almost as tall as I am and probably too big to move successfully. Likewise, the Christian life is to be a growth and a development. Out in the woods two things are happening, things which are actually transfigurations. The vegetation that is living is growing, and the vegetation that is dead is decaying. Those are the two processes which are taking place out there. And one of those processes is taking place in your Christian life and mine. If you are a child of God, you are to grow. And Peter lists the different attributes which are to characterize our growth. At the beginning, my little tree had very delicate needles, but they are different nowthey are sturdy looking. And there should be growth and development like that in the Christian life. Peter begins by saying, “Add to your faith virtue.” The “faith” is saving faith, that which gave you your divine nature, that which gave you forgiveness of sins and made over to you the righteousness of Christ. Now you are to add to that, first of all, “virtue.” Down through the centuries, some English words have changed their meaning, and virtue is one of them. Virtus to the Roman of the first century meant a great deal more than chastity. It characterized the very finest of Roman manhood: strength, valor, courage, and excellence. My friend, these same qualities should also characterize your life and mine. How the world needs believers who have the courage to stand for that which is right and to stand up and be counted for God in this day! Therefore Peter is saying, “Add to your faith courage.” “Add …to virtue [courage] knowledge.” Here the Greek word for “knowledge” is gnosis, meaning “to know God in His salvation.” It indicates growth. In verse 2Pe_1:2 the word knowledge was the Greek word epignosis, meaning “super knowledge.” Paul, writing to the Colossian believers, said that he prayed that they might have this epignosis, the super knowledge. The Gnostic heresy, which was abroad in that day, claimed to impart super knowledge by their secret rituals. However, “knowledge” for both Peter and Paul meant growth and development in the Christian life, and super knowledge was the goal as the Holy Spirit confirmed the Word of God to the heart. Let me give you a personal example. When I was in college, I had doubts; in fact, I was very much of a skeptic and rather cynical at that time. Although I believed the Word of God, my faith was being torn to shreds in the liberal college I was attending. In fact, I said to one of the ministers who helped me a great deal that if I could not be convinced that the Bible was the Word of God, I would get out of the ministry. At that time I had faith, but it was a very weak faith. However, I can say dogmatically today that I not only believe the Bible is the Word of God, I know it is the Word of God. The Holy Spirit has confirmed it to me, and, friend, you cannot have a higher confirmation than when the Holy Spirit confirms the Word of God to your heart and life and makes it very real to you. When young people ask me about a book which will show that the Bible is the Word of God, I have several in my library to suggest, but I haven’t read one of those books in years. When I was their age, all I did read was books on apologetics. Well, I have long since passed that stage. My faith doesn’t need that kind of propping up now. Some folk accuse me of being too dogmatic. No, I’m not too dogmatic; I am just sure and positive, that’s all. If I didn’t believe the Bible to be the Word of God, I wouldn’t be teaching it. As I told that minister when I was in college, I would not go into the ministry unless I could stand in the pulpit with complete confidence in the Book which I was presenting. Can you imagine a pilot taking two or three hundred people across the country in one of those great planes and saying, “Throw out the logbook and the maps and the charts. I don’t have any confidence in them”? May I say to you, if you are sitting on such a plane, you are in trouble. But, of course, a man who is a commerical pilot believes in his logbook and his maps and charts. There is no need for you to get out of your seat and go to the cockpit and argue with him about them. He knows. He has information which has been confirmed to himhe has flown that route hundreds of times. My friend, you can be sure of the Word of God, and as you study it and share it with others, the Spirit of God will confirm it to your heart, and you will experience growth in your spiritual life. This is what Peter had in mind when he said to add to your courage knowledge. You need courage to declare the Word of God. You are not apt to give out the knowledge that you have of Christ unless you have the courage to do it. “Add …to knowledge temperance.” That word temperance in our day refers to only one thing. A better word is self-control. As believers, we are to be self-controlled in every area of our lives. “Add …to temperance [self-control] patience.” Many folk have the wrong concept of what patience really is. They think it means sitting in a traffic jam on the freeway in the morning without worrying about getting to work. Well, that is not patience. It just gives you an excuse for being late to work. Patience is being able to endure when trials come. Patience is endurance. It is built upon knowledge and courage. Like a growing tree, a Christian should be developing courage, then knowledge, then self-control, and then endurance. “Add …to patience godliness.” Godliness is another word which has been lost in the shuffle. It means exactly what it saysto be like God. After you have been born into the family of God, you want to be like your FatherGodlike. It doesn’t mean that you will be like God, but it does mean that you have that desire and aim in your life. I think of the words of a song we sing, “Oh, to be like Him….” Well, it should be more than a song; it should be the desire of every individual who is a partaker of the divine nature. I believe there is a time in every boy’s life when his dad is his hero and sometimes his idol.
It is a terrible day when that idol falls from its pedestal, but it happens, and often the boy grows bitter. Well, we are children of God, and because of this, we want to be like our Father. And, my friend, He will never disappoint us. He is not only our hero, He is our God, the one we worship and praise. The word godliness has in it that very thought of praise and worship of God. It speaks of a dependence upon God and a life that is devoted to Him. “Add …to godliness brotherly kindness.” We can make that a stronger expression by translating it “love of the brethren.” We are to love other believers. I receive many letters from those who listen to my Bible teaching on radio in which they say that they love me. And I can respond, “And I love you.” If I met these folk personally, I am sure we would be more restrained, but certainly we should love the brethren. I have the opportunity of meeting with some very wonderful Christiansboth laymen and preachers. Sometimes we eat lunch together; sometimes we play golf together; and sometimes we have a service together. It is a joy to have a sweet and loving relationship with the brethren. “Add …to brotherly kindness charity.” Again, the word charity means something entirely different in modern America from what it meant in 1611 when the King James Version was written. Since “brotherly kindness” is specifically for other believers, it is obvious that “charity” is to be directed to outsiders. I interpret it as meaning that we are to love the sinner as God loves him. God loved him enough to redeem him, but He hates his sin and will judge it unless he does turn to Christ. I take the position that loving a sinner does not mean getting down on his level and participating in his sin. Rather, we are to love him by bringing the gospel to him. My friend, the way we reveal our love to those outside the faith is to care enough to attempt to win them to Christ.
2 Peter 1:8
“If these things be in you.” You see, Peter is not talking about the externalities of religion. He is not speaking of rituals or religion or liturgy. He is speaking of that which is inside the Christian. The reason he said that we have escaped the corruption of the world is because we are partakers of the divine nature. Corruption is inside the human heart. Later on he will say that the unsaved, that is, the apostates, escape the pollutions of the world (by going through a ceremony or acting religious), yet their hearts are not changed. When he says, “If these things be in you"what things? The things he has mentioned in the preceding verses: faith and courage and knowledge and self-control and patience and godliness and love of the brethren and love for the outsider. All of these things are to be within us. “If these things be in you, and abound.” Here he starts multiplying again. Peter is great with mathematics. “They make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful.” The word barren actually means “idle.” This has to do with what we call the fruit of the Spirit. We cannot produce the fruit of the Spirit by sitting on the sidelines. While it is true that the fruit of the Spirit is the work of the Holy Spiritthat is, we cannot produce it by ourselveswe are to yield ourselves to Him, present our bodies definitely to Him, and draw from the Vine, the Lord Jesus Christ, the fruit of the Spirit. Again, the fruit is: faith, courage, knowledge, self-control, patience, godliness, love of the brethren, and love for the unsaved. He doesn’t want us to be barren. “Nor unfruitful” has to do with that which is, I believe, objective. Being barren has to do with that which is subjective, that which is internal. You have had, I am sure, the experience of meeting Christians who sound like sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal or an empty barrel. They are barren as far as the fruit of the Spirit is concerned. In contrast to this, we as believers are not to be unfruitful. Our lives are to be characterized by the fruit of the Spirit that Peter has been telling us about. My friend, does your life influence other people? Are you helping to get the Word of God out to folk who need it?
2 Peter 1:9
Now Peter is touching on something which is very important to us; that is, sterility in the lives of many church members in our day. Their lack of enthusiasm will eventuate in their not being sure that they were ever really saved. Paul gives this admonition: “Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong. Let all your things be done with charity” (1Co_16:13-14). Then when he concluded his second letter to the Corinthians, he said, “Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?” (2Co_13:5).
This is a very strong statement. You are to examine yourself to make sure you are in the faith. If you have the idea that you can live a careless life and still be a Christian and know it, you are wrong. It is impossible. You may be a Christian, but you sure won’t know it. Many years ago a young preacher in Cannon Beach, Oregon, said to me one evening, “There are many Christians who believe in the security of the believer, but they do not have the assurance of their salvation.” You see, the security of the believer is objective; the assurance of salvation is subjective.
Peter has well stated it: “He that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins.” He has forgotten that he has been saved.
2 Peter 1:10
“Give diligence to make your calling and election sure"he means, of course, more sure. In other words, the security of the believer is objective; it is something that cannot be disturbed. However, your assurance can certainly be disturbed by the life you live. If your life is not lived in sincerity and truth, you are bound to lie on your bed at night and wonder if you really have been born again. While it is true that Christ has done everything necessary to save you and keep you saved, your Christian life to be meaningful is something that you have to work at. I have been married for a long time, and I never have to lie awake at night and wonder whether or not I am married; but to make my marriage meaningful, I have to work at it, and I have been working at it for a long, long time. Likewise in your Christian life, “make your calling and election more sure.” That is, let it become subjective in your own heartto know that you are a child of God. “For if ye do these things ye shall never fall.” I have talked with many Christians who have gotten into sin. It is very interesting to me that I have never yet talked to one who had the assurance of his salvation before he got into sin. You see, the person who lacks assurance lacks a solid foundation under him.
2 Peter 1:11
Notice that Peter will put an emphasis not upon the Rapture but upon the coming of Christ to establish His Kingdom upon this earth. Why? We find out in verse 2Pe_1:14: “Knowing that shortly I must put off this my tabernacle, even as our Lord Jesus Christ hath shewed me.” You see, Peter is one apostle who did not look forward to the Rapture. He knew he would never live to see the Rapture because the Lord Jesus had told him that he was to die a martyr’s death. Therefore, he knew that shortly he must put off his tabernacle, that is, his body. This is a wonderful way to speak of death. Since Simon Peter knew that shortly he would move out of his body and into God’s presence, he spoke of the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, knowing that there would be no Rapture ahead for him.
2 Peter 1:12
Knowing that he would not be with them very much longer, he felt called upon to stir up these saints to grow in grace, lest spiritual senility set in. There are Christians todayand I am sure you have met some of themwho are actually spiritually senile. They are tottering around, not seeming to have all of their faculties.
2 Peter 1:13
“I think it meet"that is, I think it fitting"as long as I am in this tabernacle.” Again he is speaking of his body as his tabernacle. As long as he had life, he was going to remind them of these important things.
2 Peter 1:14
Here Peter is referring to what Jesus had told him that morning when He had prepared breakfast for them on the shore of the Sea of Galilee after His resurrection. He had said, “Verily, verily, I say unto thee, When thou wast young, thou girdedst thyself, and walkedst whither thou wouldest: but when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest not.” Then John comments, “This spake he, signifying by what death he should glorify God …” (Joh_21:18-19). This passage in 2 Peter has been one of the most important sections in the entire Word of God. I have gone over it rather carefully so that you might know and understand what Peter is saying here. You can see now why I have been calling this epistle Peter’s swan song. It is, as it were, his deathbed statement. When a man is on his deathbed, he is apt to say something of importance even though he has not said anything of importance up to that time. If he has been a liar all of his life, the chances are that on his deathbed he will tell the truth. It is interesting that the Word of God attaches some importance to deathbed statements. Let me illustrate this from the Old Testament. Genesis 49 gives us a scene that is sad and rather dramatic. Jacob called his twelve sons to stand around his deathbed as he makes a prophecy concerning each one of those boys. Those prophecies have been literally fulfilled. When Moses knew that he would not enter the Promised Land but would die on Mount Nebo in the land of Moab, he gathered the twelve tribes about him and blessed each of them before his deathvery much as Jacob had done before him. It was a very important discourse that he gave to them at that time. When Joshua was old and ready to depart from this life, he also gathered the tribes of Israel together and delivered to them his final charge. Then he challenged them to follow God and gave the testimony of his own life: " …As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD” (Jos_24:15). When David was about to die, he called Solomon to him. I don’t believe that David would have chosen Solomon for his successor; he would have preferred Absalom, but Absalom had been slain. David said to Solomon, “I go the way of all the earth.” (What a picture that is of death! I don’t know who you are or where you are, but I can tell you the road on which you are traveling. You are going the way of all the earth, and that is to the cemetery. I realize that this doesn’t sound very good, but all of us are on that route.) Then David charged Solomon with the responsibility of building the temple of God, and he exhorted all Israel to help him, for “…Solomon my son, whom alone God hath chosen, is yet young and tender, and the work is great: for the palace is not for man, but for the LORD God” (1Ch_29:1). Then, in the New Testament when the Lord Jesus came into Jerusalem for that last Passover, He made it very clear to His own in His Upper Room Discourse that it was His last time with them while He was here in the fleshbefore He would die and rise again in a glorified body. Oh, what tremendous truths He gave to them on that last evening! The apostle Paul, as we have seen, gave his final epitaph in 2 Timothy. This is his swan song: “For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing” (2Ti_4:6-8). Now Simon Peter says, “Knowing that shortly I must put off this my tabernacle.” He knows that he has come to the end of his earthly life. Tradition tells us that he was crucified with his head down, and some folk have interpreted that to mean upside down. I personally don’t think it means that. Rather, I believe the implication is that our Lord held his head up as He looked into the heavens, but Simon Peter felt himself to be unworthy to die in the same manner his Lord had died; so he died with his head down. When Simon Peter said, “I must put off this my tabernacle,” he was referring, of course, to his body. The word Peter used for “tabernacle” is the Greek skenoma, which means “a tent or a dwelling place.” Both Peter and Paul used that expression when referring to the body. Paul wrote, “For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens” (2Co_5:1). A tent is a pretty flimsy sort of thing, and if you don’t believe that your little tent is flimsy, just step out on one of the freeways across this country, and you will find that your little tent will fold and you will silently slip away. When we die, it is this little body that you and I live in that is put to sleep. The body sleeps in the dust of the earth. When God created Adam, He took his body out of the dirt. Man was created out of the earth. Our bodies contain fifteen or sixteen elements which can be found in the average soil todaythat is the composition of the body. The body is put to sleep and returns to the dust of the earth. The Greek word that the Bible uses for “sleep” means “to lie down.” In classical Greek it means “to go to bed.” A man who believes in “soul sleep” discussed this with me. I told him that “to sleep” means to go to bed and facetiously asked him to tell me which end of the soul he would stick under the cover and which end would go on the pillow. He hasn’t been able to enlighten me yet, of course, because it is the body that sleeps, not the soul. It is the body that is like a tent. It is very feeble, and one of these days we are going to put it aside. Paul also says, “We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord” (2Co_5:8). That is the way both Peter and Paul speak of death. This little tent we live in is put down into the grave. It goes to sleep, but the soul never dies. And, of course, the soul is never raised from the dead since it never dies. The word resurrection refers to the body. In the Greek it is anastasis, which means “to stand up,” and obviously that refers to the body.
2 Peter 1:15
AUTHORITY OF THE SCRIPTURES ATTESTED BY FULFILLED PROPHECY"After my decease"the word he uses means “exodus.” He will just be moving out of his house, his tabernacle, down here; he will be putting it off as if it were a garment, and he will be making his exodus. Now the word exodus implies that death doesn’t end it all. When the children of Israel went out of Egypt, the Egyptians said, “We are through with them. This ends it.” But it didn’t end it. Israel continued on in the wilderness and finally entered into the Promised Land, and Egypt doesn’t seem to be through with them even to this good day! And for this man Peter, death was merely an exodus; it wasn’t an end to it all. “To have these things always in remembrance.” Peter is saying that, in the light of his approaching death, he wants to bring before us certain things to keep in remembrance. And the thing he will really emphasize is the validity of the Word of God. Now, there is a way of looking at the remainder of Peter’s epistle that may be a little difficult to understand, but there are two forces in the world today. There is centrifugal force and centripetal force. A centrifugal force impels outward from a center. If you tie a ball on a string and swing it around your head, the ball will pull on the string, trying to get away from you. The centripetal force is just the oppositeit pulls toward a center or axis. Peter will deal with these two conflicting forces in relationship to the Word of God.
There is a centrifugal force that impels outward from the world in which you and I live today, and there is centripetal force that pulls us into the world and away from the Word of God. My friend, the centrifugal force is the Word of God. It is the only thing that can pull us away from the world system. A letter from an alcoholic who began listening to our Bible teaching program by radio tells how the Word of God pulled him away from the bottle and from a worldly life and pulled him toward God. Peter has already told us that we are to make our calling and election more sure, and he wants us to know that we have an authority on which we can depend. Somebody is going to raise the question, “How do you know that the Bible is really the Word of God?”
2 Peter 1:16
This is something that is very important for us to see. “We have not followed cunningly devised fables.” The Bible is not a pack of lies. The Bible is not a fairy story. The Bible is not a myth. The Bible is historical and factual. If you are sincere and want to give up your sins, God will make it real to you. If there is a veil over your eyes, it is not because you are mentally blind; it is because you do not want to give up your sins. When you and I are willing to do that, God will make the Bible real to us. “But were eyewitnesses of his majesty.” Now, I tell you, that is just a little disconcerting. When did Simon Peter see the power and coming of Jesus Christ? He will make it clear that he is referring to the transfiguration of Jesus Christ.
2 Peter 1:17
Obviously, Peter is referring to the Transfiguration. We need to understand the significance of this event. What did Jesus mean in Mat_16:28? “Verily I say unto you, There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom.” This has led some people to claim that the Kingdom was well established at this point. (It is unfortunate that we have a chapter break at this point in Matthew’s accountremember that in the original manuscripts there are no chapters.) The account continues: “And after six days Jesus taketh Peter, James, and John his brother, and bringeth them up into an high mountain apart, and was transfigured before them: and his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light” (Mat_17:1-2). The transfiguration of Jesus Christ was a miniature picture of the Kingdom. Moses and Elijah appeared there with Christ. Moses represents the Law in the Old Testament. Elijah represents the prophets in the Old Testament. What were they discussing? They were discussing Christ’s decease, His exodus, His passing from the room of this world into the presence of the Father.
That is what they had written about in the Old Testament, and that is what they were talking about at the Transfiguration. Then there were the three disciples present to observe the Transfiguration. They represent the living saints. Moses and Elijah represent the dead saints of the Old Testament. The church was not yet in existence, but the three disciples who were there would constitute the beginning of that body of believers which is the church. They would be the apostles.
So the Transfiguration gives us a miniature picture of the Kingdom. Immediately after the Transfiguration, Jesus Christ and the disciples came down from the mount, and there they found a man with a demonized son. The other disciples could do nothing to help the boy. The observing people were jeering and ridiculing the disciples. That is a picture of the present day. The Kingdom is in abeyance. Jesus Christ is at the right hand of God, and all the Old and New Testament saints who have gone before are with Him.
While down here on this earth we are living in a demonized world. If you doubt this, all you have to do to be convinced is to read your newspaper or watch your television newscast. The world is in a terrible mess. The church, which ought to have a message of hope and power for the world, is not helping this demonized world. As a result, the church is being ridiculedand in one sense, rightly sobecause the church is not about the Father’s business as it should be. Now Simon Peter has said that he was with the Lord Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration. He was one of the eyewitnesses. Then he says this strange thing:
2 Peter 1:19
“We have also a more sure word of prophecy"when he uses the word prophecy he doesn’t necessarily mean the prediction of the future, although he includes that. He means the entire Word of God, because he speaks of the Scriptures as having been spoken by God. And the prophets, as he will make it clear in the next verse, were more than amanuenses who took dictation from God; rather, they expressed their own feelings and thoughts. Nevertheless, God was able to transmit His complete will and word through the men who wrote Scripture. This is the thing that makes it a miraculous Book. You see, the Word of God is not only divine; it is human, very human.
It is like the Lord Jesus who was both God and man. The Bible is a God-book and a man-book. It deals with human life, right down where you and I live and move and have our being, yet it is God speaking to man in a language that is understandable to him. A great many people think, “Oh, if only I could have been with Peter. If only I could have seen those things.” Friend, you have something even better. You have the Word of God. It will speak directly to you if you will open your heart and allow it to speak. The Word of God is better than seeing and hearing. “We have also a more sure word of prophecy"rather “the word of prophecy is made more sure.” “A light that shineth in a dark place.” The Word of God is a light, a lamp, a source of light, like the sun in the sky. It is a centrifugal force. As the sun gives out its light, throwing it out to the universe, so the Word of God sends out a light, a force, and a power. It is the only tangible supernatural thing that we have in this world today. The Word of God is the only physical miracle that we have from God in this hour in which we live. It will be that until Jesus comes"until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts.” Jesus is called the Bright and Morning Star in Rev_22:16. Until He comes, His Word is the centrifugal force going throughout the world and drawing men away from the world system and putting them into the arms of God. What a picture we have here!
2 Peter 1:20
“Knowing this first.” Simon Peter says that this is the first thing we are to know. The word knowing is a knowledge that comes, not only from the Word of God, not only from facts that can be ascertainedif you have an honest heart, you can find out whether the facts in the Bible are accurate or notbut these are things which you can know by the Holy Spirit’s making them real to you. As I have said before, I have long since passed the stage when I wanted the Bible proved to me. When I was in college, I did want the Bible proved to me; and if I found that archaeology had dug up a spadeful of dirt somewhere that proved a fact in the Bible, I would clap my hands like a little child and shout, “Wonderful!” I don’t do that anymore. I don’t need a spadeful of turned-up dirt to prove the Bible to me. The Spirit of God Himself has made the Word of God real to my heart.
I know there is a transforming power in God’s Word. I get letters from all over the world which testify to that fact. There is power in the Word of God. This is something that we can know, and the facts, confirmed by the Holy Spirit, make it real to us. “No prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation.” What Peter is saying here is that no portion of the Scripture is to be interpreted apart from other references to the same subject. That is the reason I put up such an objection to this idea of pulling out one little verse of Scripture and building a doctrine on that one verse. If you cannot get the whole body of Scripture to confirm your doctrine, then you had better get a new doctrine, my friend. I think a good illustration is the difference between riding in a good, solid, four-wheeled wagon and on a unicycle. If you have ever seen a person ride on that one wheel of a unicycle, you have noted that he does a lot of twisting and turning and maneuvering around to stay balanced on that one wheel. In the circus I once saw a man riding way up high on a unicycle, and all of a sudden it went out from under him, and he fell backwards. Believe me, he had a bad fall. And I thought, Oh, how many Christians are like that today. They base what they believe on a single verse.
While it is wonderful to have one marvelous verse of Scripture, if it tells a great truth, there will be at least two or three verses and usually a whole chapter on it somewhere in the Bible. Simon Peter is telling us that no passage of Scripture should be interpreted by itself. We need to confirm it with other Scriptures.
2 Peter 1:21
“For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man.” Obviously he is referring to Old Testament prophecy. It didn’t come by the will of man. That is, Isaiah, for example, did not sit down saying, “I think I’ll write a book because I need some money. I’ll send it to the publisher, and he will send me an advance check, and then I’ll get royalties for it.” That is the reason some men write in our day, but that is not the way Isaiah did it. Listen to Peter: “For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man.” The prophecy of Isaiah was not something that Isaiah thought up. “But holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.” “Holy men” does not mean that the writers were some superduper saints. It means holy in the sense of being set apart for this particular office. If you are a holy Christian, it means that you are set apart for Jesus Christ. Holy means “to be set apart.” “As they were moved by the Holy Ghost [Spirit]” is a delightful figure of speech. The Greek actually portrays the idea of a sailing vessel. The wind gets into those great sails, bellies them out, and moves the ship along. That is the way the Holy Spirit moved these men. Here in California we have a yacht regatta each year. The yachts line up and start for Honolulu, Hawaii, to sail in around Diamond Head. (A man must be rich enough to own such a sailing yacht and to have the time to enter such a regatta.) Some time ago a doctor performed an operation on me one day, and the next day he was off sailing to Honolulu! When he got back, I was asking him about it. He told me that they have an extra sail which they put out when they get a good wind and that moves the boat right along. Well, this is exactly what Peter is saying in this verse of Scripture. These men who were set apart for the writing of the Scriptures were moved along by the Spirit of God. Now let me remind you that this is Peter’s swan song, and, like Paul in his swan song, he emphasizes the importance of the Word of God for the days of apostasy. Paul said, “All scripture is given by inspiration of God …” (2Ti_3:16), and Peter is saying that the writers of Scripture were moved along by the Holy Spirit. The thought is the same. It is wonderful to see how God could take each man and use him, without changing his style or interfering with his personality, to write His Word so that His message comes across. While Paul the apostle wrote eloquent Greek, Peter the apostlesince he was a fisherman and Greek was his second languagewrote Greek that was not quite as good. Yet God used both of these men to write exactly what He wanted to sayso much so that, if God spoke out of heaven today, He would have to repeat Himself, because He already has said all that He has to say to mankind.
God has gotten His Word to us through men of different personalities and different skills. For this reason I call it a man-book and a God-book. The written Word, like the Lord Jesus, the living Word, is both human and divine. The Lord Jesus could weep at a grave, but He could also raise the dead. He could sit down at a well because He was tired and thirsty, but He could also give the water of life to a poor sinner. He could go to sleep in a boat, but He could also still the storm. He was a man, but He was God also. And the Bible is both human and divine. Simon Peter is telling us that we have “a more sure word of prophecy.” He puts a sure rock under our feet. The Scriptures are something that we can have confidence in. No wonder the Word of God has been attacked more than anything else. If the enemy can get rid of the foundation, he knows that the building will come crashing down. It is sheer nonsense for a preacher to stand at a pulpit and preach a sermon showing that he does not believe that the Bible is the Word of God. That, to my judgment, is as silly as the poor fellow in the insane asylum whom a visitor saw using a pickax on the foundation at the corner of the dormitory in an attempt to destroy the foundation. The visitor, wanting to be sympathetic, asked the man with the pickax, “What are you doing?” “I’m digging away the foundation. Can’t you see?” “Yes, but don’t you live in this building?” “Of course I do, but I live upstairs.” For a preacher to discredit the Word of God is equally as insane. My friend, the Scriptures as we have them are a solid foundation on which to rest our faith. The last time I was in Greece, I went again to the Acropolis in Athens and examined the Parthenon. I have examined it several times to make sure I am accurate in this statement: there are not two parallel lines in the place, nor is there a straight line. If you go to one end and look down, you will see that it comes up to a hump in the middle and then goes back down. The Greeks had learned that the human eye never sees anything straight which is straight. This, I believe, is the reason God says that we are to walk by faith and not by sight. We can’t trust our own eyes nor our own ears, but we can rest upon the Word of God. One of the greatest proofs that the Bible is indeed the Word is fulfilled prophecy. Over one-third of the Scripture was prophetic at the time it was first written. It is not to be treated as speculation or superstition because of the fact that a great deal of it has already been literally fulfilled. As someone has well said, “Prophecy is the mold into which history is poured.” Fulfilled prophecy is, to me, one of the great proofs of the accuracy of Scripture. Peter has said, “We have also a more sure word of prophecy.” Since one-fourth of prophecy has been fulfilled, this means that one-fourth of one-third of the Bible is fulfilled prophecy. Man cannot guess that accurately!
There were three hundred thirty prophecies in the Old Testament concerning the first coming of Christ, and all of them were literally fulfilled. No human being can guess like that. Let me give you an example. Suppose that right now I should make a prophecy that it is going to rain tomorrow. I’d have a 50 percent chance of being right, because it either will or it won’t. But suppose I add to that the prediction that it would start raining tomorrow morning at nine o’clock. That would be another uncertain element. I am no mathematician, but it seems to me that this would reduce my chance of being right by another 50 percent.
Now suppose that I not only say it is going to start raining at nine o’clock but also that it will stop raining at two o’clock. According to my figuring, that would bring down my chance of being correct to 12½percent. And it would be a lot less than that if you figure it according to a twenty-four hour day. But suppose I add three hundred uncertain elements. I would not have a ghost of a chance of being accurate. Yet the Word of God hit it, my friend.
It is accurate. The Bible has moved into the area of absolute impossibility, and that to me is absolute proof that it is the Word of God.