2 Peter 1:1-11 - Building on our Foundation

2 Peter 1:1-11

Greeting the Faithful

1 Simon Peter, a bondservant and apostle of Jesus Christ,

To those who have obtained like precious faith with us by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ:

2 Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, 3 as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, 4 by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.

Fruitful Growth in the Faith

5 But also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, 6 to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, 7 to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love. 8 For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 For he who lacks these things is shortsighted, even to blindness, and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins.

10 Therefore, brethren, be even more diligent to make your call and election sure, for if you do these things you will never stumble; 11 for so an entrance will be supplied to you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

This second letter of Peter the messenger and willing servant of Jesus Christ was written to all who are in Christ by faith in His person and work for their salvation to redeem and reconcile them from God’s wrath on their sin.  We are included in this audience who are also in Christ through receiving Him by repentance and faith in this gospel.  We have this precious faith that was given by God (Ephesians 2:8-9) to obtain this salvation from sin’s penalty by His substitutionary suffering to death that we might live to Him (Romans 6:10-11) through His death and resurrection.  We obtain this faith by His righteousness and not our own (as if we were ever able to earn salvation from our feeble and failing efforts to do good enough) and stand in Christ and His righteousness alone for our acceptance into heaven in the presence of our Father.  To we who so know Him by transformation in the inner man by God’s Spirit who seals us as His (Ephesians 1:13-14), we find this grace and peace of God’s Son by life changing faith to really know Him as our Lord and Savior (Isaiah 45:21-22, 23-24) so we also say, “Surely in the LORD I have righteousness and strength.”  Yes, His divine power has bestowed all we need for life and godliness through this imparted knowledge and understanding of His Spirit living in we who have been redeemed with this absolute hope of assurance to persevere to the end without losing this salvation in our sanctification to be ever more conformed to the image of Christ (Romans 8:29) until we die.  He called us by His glory and virtue to know and follow Him with the assurance of these enormous and precious promises to be sharers in His divine nature (2 Corinthians 3:18) as we are changed more and more into the image of God in which Adam was originally designed and created, knowing that we have been rescued from the corruption of sin and its ungodly desires (1 John 2:15-17) to please God instead of ourselves.  Knowing these things, we are called to set our minds on things above (Colossians 3:2) and diligently build on this foundation of faith entrusted to us, beginning with virtue.  This means adding moral goodness and excellence with purity of thoughts and actions according to the guidelines of God’s word and not the world’s philosophical definitions.  Then we continue to add knowledge of what is right in God’s sight and practice these things until we gain self-control over our desires and actions that we might live to please God and not ourselves or others.  Knowing and doing these things, we then learn to persevere in doing them and do not give up or go back to living contrary to the word of God as we daily choose to put sin to death (Romans 8:13) in ourselves.  This leads to the formation of true godliness in us by His work and our effort in following Him who leads and changes us inwardly.  As we practice this godliness in living we begin to love others as ourselves (Luke 10:27, Galatians 5:14) and ultimately love as God loves us, unconditionally and unreservedly.  If these pursuits are falling short in us, then we must look inside to see why we are so shortsighted as to forget the grace shown us in the suffering and death of our Lord on our behalf who cleansed us from our sin with such forgiveness and grace so we can show our love to Him by loving one another.  Yes, we need to first diligently examine ourselves to be certain we truly believed and received Jesus Christ and that He called us to Himself.  Once we have settled the matter in accordance with scripture and are assured of our presence in Christ, we then should understand that we have been promised an entrance into His kingdom and live accordingly, dying daily to our desires and living to satisfy His as we have been called (Ephesians 2:10) to pursue.  This is building our lives on the foundation of the Rock of our salvation.