“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.” (2 Peter 1:3, NASB95)
I have several friends that are school teachers, and as I
have observed them I noticed that they receive great joy in having grants on
which they worked being finally approved for the benefit of their children. The
award ceremony is usually some kind of a big deal as the donor of the grant gets
some notoriety, and the organization gets some benefit, with the one who did
the work standing between the two with a huge paper check getting some
recognition. Apart from the donor, the organization would have either done
without or had to come up with some other means to meet their need. Without to
donor, the person seeking the assistance on behalf of the organization would
have no one to appeal. It doesn’t matter how much someone might desire
assistance, without the donor the grant simply would not exist.
Peter continues his introduction to this second letter by
reminding his readers that all that they had pertaining to life and godliness
or all that really mattered was given to them or granted to them by the power
of God in Christ Jesus. God holds all the resources in His hands. There is no
beneficial resource that exists apart from Him. And, we as mankind are helpless
to avail ourselves of it apart from Him being willing to let it loose. God has
graciously done this in so many ways for all of mankind. We are His creation
and every resource that we have to conduct life exists because of Him. He
breathed life into us, and He gave us this perfectly placed and designed planet
and all there is to sustain that life on it. But He did so much more than just
bring us to a terrarium and place in it. He continues to involve Himself in our
lives, and He is the One who determined how He would bring us back into a
relationship with Him after we severed that relationship by our sin. We all
deserve death in a dying terrarium, but God continues to inject life, and He is
the One responsible for giving us life that will never fade and that will be
ultimately realized in a new home without any defect whatsoever.
Peter was not pointing to God in a general humanity way, but
in the more specific way that He works in the lives of those who are of that
“faith of the same kind” as his. Everyone benefits in so many ways, but
ultimately this general blessing will pass away into judgment. This is true,
except for those who know the faith of which Peter referred in the first verse.
It is us who have salvation in Christ who know so much more of what God truly
grants. He has given us the ability to live as His called, forgiven,
life-endowed, and greatly blessed children.
Peter wrote of God’s divine power. He is the ultimate
authority. All authority that exists, exists because of Him and is subject to
Him. He is powerful over the entirety of His creation, and He has placed every
aspect of it into the hands of His Son. This is what Paul tells un in
Colossians, chapter 1. “He [Jesus Christ] is the image of the invisible God,
the firstborn of all creation. For by Him all things were created, both in the
heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or
rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him. He
is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. He is also head of
the body, the church; and He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so
that He Himself will come to have first place in everything. For it was the
Father’s good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him, and through Him to
reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His
cross; through Him, I say, whether things on earth or things in heaven.”
(Colossians 1:15–20, NASB95)
As the Son of God, being One with the Father, Jesus Christ
has been given all authority. It is in accordance with that authority that He
has granted, or chosen to intentionally give, to us all that we need and
everything that pertains to life and godliness. I love this term “all that
pertains.” It means all that is related to it. There is nothing held back. We
have been given it freely and fully by the Son of God who has been invested
with all authority to in turn share with us. This is an amazing truth. Our God
who is manifest in three persons—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit has invested in
us and given to us all that we need for life and godliness. He isn’t stingy
toward us. He isn’t holding back. There is nothing we have to go out and earn
in order to get more credits or more of His gift in regard to these things.
This does not mean that we fully understand it or live in
accordance with it. The reality is that we all struggle in this regard. But the
issue isn’t that God has held something back, but rather that we need to
continue to walk with Him and grow in our knowledge and understanding of just
what He has done. We are no less a Christian, but we may (and certainly do)
have a ways to grow in how we live the godly lives which Christ has invested in
us to do.
Peter’s letter is written to help in that regard, and he has
set the foundation by telling us of our great inheritance from God in Jesus
Christ. It is for that reason that coupled with the grant is our growing in
knowledge of the Grantor who has specifically and individually chosen and
called each of us. This word knowledge is a key word in this second letter of
Peter’s. It is used several times in this first chapter, and then again later.
It is the Greek word epignosis, and means more than just knowing. It means
really knowing such that you understand. It is a personal or intimate knowledge,
and this is the kind of knowledge that we are to have of Him. It is we grow in
our intimate knowledge of His glory and excellence that we in turn live lives of
responsive worship and obedient reflection. The world knows the basic stuff to
varying degrees, and it scoffs at Him. We have the privilege of growing in our
knowledge of Him in a very deep and personal way as our Savior who because of
His great love delivered us from sin and seated us in heavenly places with Him.
Our faith is truly a living faith because it has been given
to us by our resurrected and living Lord. As we get to know Him and what He has
done and continues to do on our behalf, our lives will be changed.
No comments:
Post a Comment