Introduction & The believer's resources

First thing we'll do is, we have a few notes on 2 Peter. And there's, if you read, if you go into a Bible introduction of 2 Peter, you find out that a lot of liberal scholars don't accept the book as a question of authenticity. They say, it wasn't one of the inspired books, or it was a forged document. So in your notes here, I have that it was not included in the Meritorian canon, which is one of the first canons where the early Christians listed the books that were inspired, that they thought inspired. It was not included in the Veshito, which is a Bible. The early Vulgate didn't have it.

Jerome added it later. It wasn't found in the writings of Polycarp, Pappius, and Irenaeus, so those were early Christians. But, and that's not the whole story, it was used by Hippolytus, it was used, or Eusebius says that Clement of Alexandria recognized it, Origen recognized it, and then several councils and other canons included it. So there is some debate if you get into it, but there's no reason to doubt that it's inspired The internal evidence that it is written by Peter, as it says it is, is strong. The book has slightly different Greek than 1 Peter. But that's not really a problem.

If Tom writes something 10 years ago and then writes something today, it's probably going to be slightly different than it was 10 years ago. And you keep learning things, you use different language. I'm going to talk the same way we did in years past. But I wanted to mention that. The book claims to be written by Peter. You'll see in a minute. We'll get into it. And it's a really neat book. So it looks like it was written right before Peter died. And if you look at 2 Peter 1, verse 14. Darby, can you read that for us?

Because I know that I will soon put it aside, as our Lord Jesus Christ has made clear to me." So, is that the whole thing? Yeah, that's it. Okay, so he's talking about his body, and he says he's going to lay it aside. So, death is imminent for him, and so we just assume he died after. So I'll shortly have to go to the book, but I don't know. The Bible doesn't record his death, so you've probably heard different things that church tradition has said about his death.

So sometime around AD 65 is when he wrote the book. He wrote the book. To whom did he write the book? Well, same group of Christians that he wrote the first epistle. And if you, on the next page two of your notes, there's a little map of Asia Minor, and it mentions those provinces which are, let's see, 1 Peter 1 says, Paul, I'm sorry, Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who reside as aliens scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, Bithynia, so Peter's writing in this second book to the same people, it's just a letter, writing to the same people, and he says that over in chapter 3 verse 1, This is now, beloved, the second letter I am writing to you in which I am stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder. Thank you. Pretty clear? Now, purposes. Why did he write the book? I have here, he wrote it to remind them of God's precious and magnificent promises to guard against false teaching.

We'll see that. 2 Peter 1, 2-4, we're going to study that in a few minutes. So, we're going to skip that for now. We're going to go through that verse by verse, just a little bit. But, down in verse 12, it says, Therefore, I will always be ready to remind you of these things, even though you already know them, and have them established in the truth which is present with you." Now he talks about leaning. Over in chapter 3 again, verses 1-3, we just read verse 1. Verse 2 says that you should remember the words spoken beforehand by the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior spoken by your apostles.

So he wrote this so that they would have something to remember right now and in the future. So he's going to remind them of some pretty important truths that will help them from false teachers that were coming in. And if it was bad in the first century, it's really bad now. Every generation thinks theirs is the worst, but it does just seem to get worse. There's somebody named Daniel, don't know him, but one of the good authors referenced it. The purpose of 2 Peter is to call Christians to spiritual growth so that they can combat apostasy as they look forward to their Lord's return. And as Lansky says, he says similar things. So let's go to page 3 in your notes. Let's look at the Ironside quotation, which is the second one down.

It is, in a very blessed way, the Spirit of God first puts before us the blessings that are ours as Christians, in the importance of Roman grace, and in the knowledge of Christ, that we may have strength to stand against the evils threatening give interception. And we're going to find that in the verses we look at this morning. They are just loaded with positional truth and talk about sanctification by grace. And that's, we need to be grounded in those truths or we will not have much discernment when the error comes, not how to handle it, etc. But anyway, this book is just a follow-up to the first letter.

Key words, I didn't spend a lot of time on this, but the key word, singular, seems to be gnosis, or epinosis, to know. We'll look at that this morning a little bit. In the related words are used 16 times. We're going to have three chapters in the book. This will be taught here until the end of December. Correct. So for the rest of the year, we'll be just looking at the three chapters.

And there's a couple outlines, but they're real simple ones that I included here, just three points, one, three, one, three chapters are very similar. And there's a lot of outlines. You could each make one and be different. Some more detailed, some more simple. These are pretty simple.

So the first chapter, let's see, Grant says, chapter one is what the righteousness of a divine messiah has provided for the believer. Chapter two, then, the progress of evil and the seduction of false teachers. Chapter three, or point three, the death and resurrection of the earth itself. And then Gabeline outlines pretty much the same thing. First point, the gracious provisions of God, which are all chapter one.

2. The evils to come from false teachers, chapter 2. 3. The future of the earth and the conclusion, chapter 3. Before we move into verses 1-4, does anyone have anything to add about the introduction of the book?

He was a pretty neat guy. And, you know, I'm joking, but, you know, why, why are we studying books by Peter, books other than written by the Apostle Paul? Peter actually, of course, was inspired and has a lot of important things to say. But, you know, he denied Christ. He knew Christ early on. Christ started his ministry.

And then it's pretty, pretty direct pompous guy, thought he knew a little more than he did, and that's going to come out this morning when we start to look at these words, the word knowledge. We're going to find out there's a difference between head knowledge and real experiential knowledge, heart knowledge, deeper knowledge. It's actually the Greek word super-knowledge, echinosis. So Peter knew a lot of stuff. He was quick. He got it. He was bright. Tell him something he noticed.

But that's not the same thing as really knowing the Savior, personally knowing the truth. Experiencing, having the Lord, go through years with the Lord, experientially work the truth into your life. That's a totally different thing. So we see that in the Gospel. We see Peter early on, knows a lot of stuff, but then, where does that get him? Nowhere.

He ends up denying Christ, denying the disciples, they all deny Christ, but then later, The Lord doesn't give up on him, and keeps working, and later he's actually used by the Lord. He does know the Lord, and writes inspired books by the Holy Spirit. So, anyway. So, verses 1 through 4. Who would like to read all of those? Roger? Roger, sure.

Simon Peter, a monservant and apostle of Jesus Christ. to those who have received the faith of the same kind as ours by the righteousness of God and Savior Jesus Christ. Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus Christ our Lord, seeing that His divine power has been granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence. For by these he has granted us his precious and magnificent promises, in order that by them you might become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust. Thanks. We'll look at verse 1. Simon Peter, so he introduces himself with both of his names. Simon was his original Hebrew or Aramaic name. But then Peter, do you remember where he got that name? Christ gave him that name, right?

Right. And that was over in Matthew 16. I have it there and we'll read it. Verse 17, we have a little bit of an action which we will look at later. Verse 17, Jesus said to Peter, Blessed are you Simon, Arjona, Because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, that Jesus was the Son of God, but my Father who is in heaven. I also say to you that you are Peter, Petras. And upon this rock, a different word, I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overpower it. So yeah, so Jesus gave him the name Peter, which means rock. And so Peter refers to himself both as Simon and as Peter here. And so Peter at first calls himself a bondservant. Peter, Simon Peter, a bondservant, an apostle of Jesus Christ.

And I'm not trying to make too much out of it, but he does mention the fact that he's a servant first, and then he refers to himself as an apostle, which he was. But he doesn't flip the order. He doesn't call himself an apostle first, and then a servant. He says he's a servant and an apostle.

The footnote in the Holman Christian Center Bible says, The strong Greek word doulos cannot be accurately translated in English as servant or bondservant. The HCSB translates this word as slave, not out of insensitivity to the legitimate concerns of modern English speakers. but out of a commitment to actively convey the brutal reality of the Roman Empire's inhumane institution, as well as the ownership called for by Christ." So, you know, it may be bond-servant, but it may just be slave, too. Yeah. And the word, I think, was used for both.

They would have these folks that would be slaves, and then they would earn their freedom, legitimately, legally be free, but then they could go back and put themselves under that servitude for the rest of their life, because their master was taking care of them. That was their livelihood. That's where they lived. That's where their family lived. And so in that case, it wouldn't be as severe as it was in the first place, where they were taken from, maybe born a slave or kidnapped from some other country and brought into their own empire to be a slave.

Not a fun situation. In reality, we are willing slaves of Jesus Christ. We are bond slaves in that sense. It's interesting, when you look at the Roman slavery system, most people didn't have any rights. You could argue it from both points. We're willing slaves. You know, we may not be in some sense to, you know, we're called by God. So we didn't really have much of a say in it. Although we do, we don't.

You know, it just goes both ways. Yeah. Yeah. Well, what we do know is that God works in us to will, do, and to do according to His good pleasure. And it's a fruit, a result of Him processing us and working in our lives. for Peter and for us to be able to say, I'm a bondservant of Christ. You know? And yeah, it's normal. I watched a news book on normal Christian life. It's normal for a Christian to be a bondservant of Jesus Christ. But it only happens by God's grace. It isn't going to happen otherwise. So it takes us a while to learn that. We'd like to try to do that.

So he does mention that first, that he's a bondservant. And then he called himself an apostle, which he was. And that was an official title, right? Official role in the New Testament era. Not today. Not active today. And he says, an apostle of Jesus Christ.

So this Jesus Christ will come up a few times. You know who he is, obviously. But it's both his Hebrew name for Jehovah's salvation, Jesus, Jesus, and then Christos, which is the Greek equivalent to Hamashiach, which is Messiah. So Jesus, of course, is the Savior, he's the Messiah. If Peter, more than Paul, although Paul does look forward to the Millennial Kingdom, Peter, more than Paul, does look forward to the Millennial Kingdom that's coming. And Christ is coming back to Earth soon. can't wait for that day.

So it says, to those who have received the faith of the same kind as ours by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ. Uh-oh. How are we going to handle this one? And ASB says, we have received faith. I think faith is a gift. Right? We talk about that a lot.

So what's going on here in the text? It takes a lot of time to study through this, which you guys, some of you do on your own during the week, and obviously the person teaching you has to study it too. So, you know, you pick through these passages word by word. And so I come to this one, looking at each word, going, oh boy, what's this saying? But at the end, it makes a lot of sense. So I'll try to share that to you.

So again, we have to talk about who he's writing this to. It's the same group he wrote the first letter to, which is the aliens and strangers in Asia Minor, modern day Turkey. And he says of the same, you know, your Greek words don't at all follow the way our English sentence reads.

So the same kind of ours. He's talking about a faith here. It's a faith, and we'll identify that later, the same kind of ours. It's equally honored, esteemed to be equal to. So he had already called himself an apostle, but now he's saying that the faith that they have is of the same kind as the apostles. We'll identify that in a minute, but it's the same kind. created too much of a distinction between himself, an apostle, and the people he was writing to. So they received this faith. This is Lancano, to receive by divine allotment, to obtain, implies a gift or a favor. Say that they were given this faith. It was equal to the faith that Peter had.

So what is it? Notes, page chapter 5. This is Pistis. So this word, of course, can mean to believe. That's one of the things it can mean. It also can refer to the content of what's believed. And I didn't list all those different verses, but you can do that yourself. This noun, this-ness, is used a lot in the New Testament. I think more than not, it's used to refer to faith, to the act of believing. But it's also, quite a few times, it refers to what you believe in, the body of doctrine, New Testament truth, the gospel. So, and that's what it refers to here.

MacDonald says, by faith, he's referring to the sum total of all they had received when they embraced the Christian faith. Darby says the same thing, not this one or this one. Faith here is the portion we have now in the things that God gives, which in Christianity are revealed as truths. So, and I say, it's just the, everything pertaining to life and godliness precious and magnificent promises that we are going to get into in verses 3 and 4. To those who have received and faith the same kind of ours by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ. And if we are going to get into these promises, these truths, the So, Josiah, kind of summarize what you just said.

He's referring to a body of doctrine that we all ascribe to, we all believe in. He's not necessarily addressing the issue of, which is addressed other places in scripture, that our faith is putting our trust and belief in the Lord Jesus Christ. That's an act that a man does and he becomes a believer. He's talking here about a body of doctrine that we all ascribe to, that we all agree to. And actually what's kind of neat is, there's a term, the faith, which is, you can trace that through, and that kind of seems like it relates to what he's saying here. The faith, the body of doctrine that we, that scripture teaches that we are, you know, that we all ascribe to, we all believe in. That's correct. So it's not so much focused on the act of believing, more is on the body of doctrine. That's right. Yep, that's correct.

It's not saying that forgiving faith Although we spoke, does he really? I didn't I didn't check him out. So he said it was. And that's you know, it's kind of interesting as we. And this is for the class, too. You know, we have helps that we kind of like and we trust. And but they're not always right. You can't look at examine every person that says and you have to decide it's that person. You know, he could be wrong, too. So that's interesting. Yeah. Now, here's here's a. Corollary, something related to this, a very similar handling of this word faith over in Galatians chapter 3.

So look at this, Galatians 3.22 and the following, because this word is used in a similar way and helps us understand what it's referring to.

Galatians 3.22. OK, so I'm going to read a few verses here.

But the scripture has shut up everyone under sin, so that the promise by faith, and that's referring to our act of believing in Jesus Christ, might be given to those who believe. But before faith came, we were kept in custody under the law, being shut up to the faith, which was later to be revealed.

Therefore, the law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, so that we may be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor. Okay, so this is an interesting passage where it uses faith, but a few times it's referring to faith as in we're believing, and then faith as in what we're believing, the doctrine. So you can see it there. But before faith came, that's referring to New Testament truth, we were kept in custody under the law, being shut up to the faith which was later to be revealed. He's not talking about believing, because Old Testament saints were saved by faith, just like we're saved by faith today.

He's talking about the doctrine, the New Testament truth that will come. And then verse 25, but now that faith has come, New Testament truth, we are no longer under a tutor's law. We're dead to the law, right? Church-aged saints are dead to the law, dead to the world, dead to Satan, dead to sin, and alive to God.

So, you know, make a note or something that the way it's used in 1 Peter 1.1 is the same way it's used in Galatians 3.20. can be falling in a couple of places.

And the last phrase there says, by the righteousness of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ. By the righteousness. And this word, dikayasune, dikayasune, just refers to justice, to the virtue, which gives, each one is due. But here, I believe, The way it's used is, Ironside says, it would be unrighteous of God to refuse to save anyone who desired to avail himself of the result of the work of the cross. So anyway, it was just for God to give us the gospel. and to give the same gospel to both apostles and non-apostles. God's just. It's nice to have a just God.

And I think one of the things that comes out is that all believers in the church age, regardless of our role, our gifting, have the same position in Christ. And we see this right in this first one. He is an apostle. But he's not, other than that distinction, he's not differentiating himself In fact, he's saying that he has the same gospel, the same body of truths that apply to him, that apply to the Christians he's writing to. So that comes out. Then he says, he refers to our God and Savior, Jesus Christ.

And this is a place where Peter is calling Jesus Christ our God and Savior. There's a little rule in the Greek called the Granville Sharpe rule. You probably remember hearing about that. But it's where you have one definite article, the, connected, two nouns in it, connected by the pi. And they're equated. So it's Jesus Christ, our God and Savior. So here, Peter is calling Jesus God. Duh. I'm not going to bother with that. But think about it.

For in the Old Testament, Old Testament believers, and there were many, there were many who were Jews in the Old Testament who were not believers, right? They were evil, they were sinners, they didn't trust God. But Old Testament saints, they knew that Jehovah was their Savior, and obviously was their God.

And just this week I happened to be reading Psalms I try to read these five psalms a day, and only do it about once a week. I'm not guilty about that. It's way worse. But anyway, so I happen to read Psalm 78, verse 35. It says, they remembered that God was their God, and the Most High God, their Redeemer, their Savior. And then 79, verse 9, it says, and Psalms, help us, O God, of our salvation, for the glory of your name, and deliver us, and forgive our sins, for your name's sake. So, pretty clearly, Old Testament believers knew that God was their God, the Creator, the all-powerful One, you know, and we're present. But also, He was their Savior.

He was going to be the One who would forgive the sins, who would send the Lamb, the Cross, right? But think about it, though. When the New Testament came, there was this man, Jesus, who said, I'm the guy. And, you know, it took him a while, took people a while to accept that.

And they ended up, and they killed him. But that all worked in the plan, because he had the darkest sins in the world. But the disciples didn't get it for a long time, right? They didn't believe that Jesus was going to die on the cross. They knew he was God, they knew he was the messiah, he was the promised one, he was going to be the king. But the part about dying for the sins of the world, they didn't make the connection until he died and rose again. Even though he told them over and over again, I'm going to die, I'm going to die. They just didn't hear it. It went right over their heads.

There's also something else interesting I learned that Hebrew rabbis, In the New Testament era and before, they actually taught that there would be multiple messiahs. So it wouldn't be just one person like Jesus who was the messiah and the savior who died on the cross, but they taught there would be multiple different messiahs who would be the king, who would take care of the sin problem, etc. But of course that's not what God had in mind.

It was Jesus. Back in Matthew 16, verse 16, just before Jesus renamed Simeon, Simon, Peter, we have this situation. Matthew 16, 16. Back in Matthew 13. Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he was asking his disciples, who do people say that the son of man is? And they answered, and they said, some say John the Baptist, others Elijah's, but still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets. Jesus said to them, but who do you say that I am? Simon Peter answered, you are the Christ, the son of the living God. So there's where Peter called him the son of God, which is equating Jesus with God.

That's saying the same thing. And in John 20, 28, Peter was there when Thomas made this clear statement. He just came into the room and said, peace be with you. He talked to the doubter Thomas. Verse 27, he said to Thomas, reach in with your finger and see my hands, and reach here with your hand, and put it into my side, and do not be unbelieving, but believing.' Thomas answered and said to him, My Lord and my God."

So Peter was there when that was said as well. So here Peter, his letter to the Christians in Asia Minor says that Jesus is our God and our Savior. And he knew that up here in his head, But, as we're going to see in the next verse, he also knew that experientially. He knew that really, deeper, and that's what we're going to talk about now.

So verse 2 says, Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. So this word grace is paris, unmerited favor, saintly, fine grace. This word peace is in Rene, and it's just peace, I like, this is okay, the tranquility of the soul, assured of its salvation through Christ, that's a little more than just referring to assured that our sins are forgiven, but peace that we know that the whole gospel, right, that Jesus is our Savior from the power of sin, just as Jesus is our Savior from the penalty of sin in the past, So that brings peace, and the Lord gives us peace as he is working in our lives. Gives us his grace, which is him working in our lives. So Peter says, Grace and peace be multiplied to you. And this verb, multiply, only shows up three times in the New Testament. Here, in 1 Peter, he introduces 1 Peter the same way. And in Jude, the first person, Jude.

So, not small amounts of grace and peace are desired, but overwhelming amounts, you know, a flood of grace and peace are what he wants. And you know Paul's lesson, you know that's how Paul prays. Paul wants the, Paul and Peter, and Christ, they want the Christians to be overwhelmed with grace and peace and mercy. And there's a reason for that, because we need overwhelming amounts of grace and peace and mercy. If we were people on earth that had it all together, that didn't have a need for a savior, that didn't have a need for God working on their life as Christians, then maybe a dose, a sprinkling of grace would be sufficient.

And that's fine, that's the way we live most of the time. That's not reality. Reality says that we need God's grace like a fire hose all the time. But, you know, typically we don't avail ourselves of it. But that's the truth. We need that much grace. So, that's what Paul, Peter's praying here.

Grace and peace will be multiplied to you. But, in the knowledge of God and Jesus our Lord. There's a little diagram on top of page 7. The preposition in is the circle. Grace and peace are the middle of the circle. The knowledge of God and Jesus our Lord are the circle. So grace and peace are multiplied to us in the knowledge of Jesus. So we says knowledge is locative, referring to the location of a sphere, but it's also the means of the grace and peace. So it's where they reside and it's where they come from. The knowledge of God and Jesus.

Now, here's this word knowledge. This is epinosus. So gnosis, you know, is the word knowledge. Epinosus is translated the same thing, knowledge. But it's got that little preposition on it. So it's not just knowledge, but it's like super knowledge. So Gnosis is just knowledge of the facts, but EpiGnosis refers to deeper knowledge, heart knowledge, intimate knowledge, super knowledge. You can describe it a bunch of different ways.

I always like to think of it, I've heard it talked about, EpiGnosis is that you You apply the knowledge. Gnosis is that you have the knowledge, and what do you do with it? Epinosis says that we go beyond just knowing that, like you mentioned before. We apply that knowledge. We trust the Lord. We act upon what His promises say. So, it's taking the next step.

Yeah, so, verse 20 describes, we'll skip this for the sake of time, but verse 20 describes Folks that just have head knowledge and no actual heart knowledge of truth. Yeah, so Einstein says, this is complete with some knowledge which only the Holy Spirit himself can give. 1 Corinthians 8 part 2 says, knowledge, or gnosis, puffs up and makes air of it, of love edified. Real knowledge, deeper knowledge of, let's say identification truths, don't pump us up.

Head knowledge of our position in Christ can make us cocky, and annoying, and turn off other Christians. Right? But if it's real knowledge, epignosis, real knowledge of our position in Christ, our Savior, fellowship with Christ, you're not going to be pumped up. Right? You can't be.

Because you know who He is. You're fellowshipping with Him. The life of Christ is flowing through you. You're having freedom from your flesh. But just knowledge of facts can make us pretty arrogant and annoying and turn people off. But if it's acknowledged, which the Holy Spirit gives us as He grows us, as He makes us like Christ, as He brings us to the point where we actually get a hoot about who this Jesus is and want to fellowship with Him. Then, you know, you're not going to be puffed up. I don't see how you can be. I mean, you can't still sin. I'm not saying that. You still make mistakes. We shouldn't be because we're only serpents. Right. Yeah.

So let's go on for time. multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and Jesus our Lord." This is another one of those places where God and Jesus are together. Obviously, we're talking about Jesus, the same person who is God. So, at the bottom of page 8, we already talked about this.

Who needs grace and peace? Well, all Christians, right? We don't live like that very often, but we do. And then there's a question, you know, Why do we look for grace and peace for other things in ourselves, in other people? You know, just because we're stupid and human and need a lot of work. But we don't often, you know, we can sit here and get excited about God's, the gospel, the good news, our position in Christ, but then Monday morning, back to work, I forgot that I'm not trying to say this guilty. I'm not trying to make anybody feel guilty. I'm just saying this is the way it works. But the Lord, He works on us. He wakes us up. He shows us our need every day, every moment of the Savior for His grace and peace.

How do we get this super knowledge, this heavy knowledge of Jesus? We can't get it ourselves. It doesn't even come from reading your Bible. Now, knowledge comes from reading our Bibles. So, reading our Bibles is important. Because God's given us the Word of God. This is how God communicates to us, right? He didn't just come down and talk to us. He gave the Old Testament, New Testament, Prophets and Apostles, this book to communicate to us His truth. So we read this and study this, keep putting our noses in it, because this is where we know what God's Word says, what His truth is. But then how do we get to know Him and experientially apply by faith what we've read? Well, He does that. He takes it to this next level of actually making it experiential and hard knowledge.

So, it's not a legalistic thing where we take this and go, darn it, I'm going to really, I'm not just going to know this in my head, I'm going to work this out in my walk. That isn't going to work. You don't know. Because we're not under grace, Brian. We're not under law, we're under grace.

But the Holy Spirit will use the Word that we study to give us fellowship with the Savior, to give us freedom from the flesh, to give us His fruit. All right, so let's go on to verse 3. Verse 3, seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him, who called us by His own glory and excellence. All right. So seeing that His divine power, and this is that word dunamis, and this is the little adjective, divine, has given, has granted, bestowed everything pertaining to life and godliness. So, there's nothing left out, right? Everything means everything here.

This is similar to Ephesians 1.3, which says, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. So we've been given every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ. Everything. Here it's saying something slightly different, but it's still the same adjective, everything. God's divine power has given us everything related to life and Godliness. So that's good news.

It doesn't come through education, money, or alcohol, drugs, whatever. It doesn't come through relationships, marriage, kids. Everything we need for life and godliness comes through this knowledge, which is epimosis. Knowledge of Christ. So that's awesome. That's something to tell our neighbors, and friends, and family. That's the gospel. So everything pertaining to life and godliness. So he says two words here, life and godliness. And there's a contrast. I'm reading F.W. Grant. There is a contrast between life and godliness. The first would include new birth, talking about spiritual life and its development until and glory. reaches its true spirit.

Well, godliness refers to the practical walk. So, I think that's right. He's been given everything pertaining to spiritual life, everything that entails, and godliness, which is this word, you see here, godliness. But, when it comes to this knowledge of him, So, He doesn't just give it to us and wind us up like a little toy and let us go, but He gives us everything between life and Godliness through the knowledge of Christ. This is fellowship with Christ, this is knowing Him, walking with Him, receiving His grace and peace and mercy every day. This is Christ's Spirit applying the identification truths to us, giving us freedom, and then he called us, this is used by Peter a lot in 1st Peter, he called us, we've already studied that, by his own glory and excellence.

Glory, doxa, and excellence, or virtue. And right in the beginning of verse 4 here, he refers to these two things. and excellence, and he says, for by these, glory and excellence, God has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust. So by His glory and excellence, He gave us these precious and magnificent promises. So this is the faith Peter is talking about in verse 1. This is grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of Christ. These are what His divine power has given us, everything pertaining to life and godliness. It's these precious and magnificent promises. They're by His glory and virtue.

And then he says, so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature. This is similar to Peter referring in chapter 1 verse 23 to be born again. But, you know, I did spend a lot of time trying to figure out if this is referring to positional truth or conditional truth. You guys can wrestle with that.

Is he talking here about positionally, having become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption of the world that is in the world by lust? Or is he referring to, by God's precious and magnificent promises, as he works them into our life, we are experientially partakers of the divine nature and escape the corruption that's in the world by lust? I think it's talking about positional truth, but I didn't spend a lot of time I'm trying to determine that exactly. But having escaped his heiress, so that's a past event.

So I think it's talking about positional interest. So we have escaped the corruption. And that's like a moral decay of rottenness. And it's everywhere. I mean, you can't even check the news, you can't even Google something on the internet, you can't get away from the rottenness that's in our culture today. It's a mess.

But positionally, because we're in Christ, identified with Him, we have to stick to it. And that's a blessing. In closing, I love this little paragraph by Dewey, he says, Here is the real victorious life of a believer. It is not some kind of a fixed holiness experience by which the old nature is eradicated, a teaching which is altogether against scripture. The heart, it should be, must be occupied with Christ, and the glory by which we are called, as a result of the divine power of the Holy Spirit in us, acts in victory over sin and evils. So, Peter here In his opening verses, he's talking about the exact same things that Paul talks about in his many letters. He reminds the recipients of the gospel, of God's faith-forming grace, of knowledge, fellowship with Christ, of the practical experience, the time it takes for God to convince us of these truths and work them into our experience.

Peter and Paul are on the same page. That's not a question in my mind, but it's obvious. And let's close in prayer. God, thanks again for letting us study 2 Peter and get together, give us a good fellowship this morning, and teach us as we study upstairs.