2 Peter 1 - The Message of Righteousness Comes only from the Righteous
In 2 Peter 1, Peter emphatically urges people to act on what they know of Christ and God, lest they backslide. Not all Christians will backslide, but you do not know for sure if you are one of the them who will, and because a man can backslide to the point of abandoning all hope in God, a point at which you would willfully step away from God’s election, you must therefore do all you can to not become one of them. Of course, backsliding does not surely result in abandonding your salvation, but it potentially does. You may even be sure that you would never walk away, but then what of your witness to others? And frankly, why take that chance? And taking chances aside, just look at all of the blessings God wants to give you. Peter lists goodness, knowledge, self-control, pereseverence, godliness, brotherly kindenss, and love. Don’t you want these to be your own characteristics? Well then, believe God, and obey Him… and through the righteousness of Christ, you too can be.
Peter then moves on to justify the emphatic nature of his letter, pointing out an objection that was already forming in the time: that he and the other apostles were making up what they wrote of Christ… that he was making up tales of Christ’s godly righteousness. Well, he wasn’t! In fact, it wasn’t even Peter who decided Christ was righteous, it was God the Father, and Peter even witnessed it. So, here’s Peter, merely reporting the facts.
Peter then closes chapter 1, basically acnowledging that wishful thinking on the part of a prophet is not what makes his word true. Simply repeating it to as many people as possible doesn’t make his word true. Certainly, committing that thinking to paper does not do it either. If Peter’s word is true, it was true before Peter ever said. That is Peter’s point at the close of the chapter 1. Peter is merely allowing the Holy Spirit to express Christ’s righteousness, and our own potential for emulating it, through his pen. It is not Peter’s message Peter is expressing, but God’s.
Many would consider it to be audacious of Peter to claim to speak for God. For who can speak for Him? The answer is God’s obedient children. Anyone who God speaks to in fact, must obediently obey, lest they chip away at the sureness of their own election! Such people, like Peter, must speak for God, because the Holy Spirit is telling them to. It’s not audaciousness, but obedience that Peter is acting in, and he wants the recipients of his letter to know it.
Peter himself is being righteouss. He believed God on that mountain. He obeys God in writing this letter. Simple. A false prophet would never.
And so we come to chapter 2. Why would Peter start writing of false prophets? So that people can see the difference between them and Peter… so that people will accept Peter’s message of righteoussness, of belief and and obedience that comes from Christ… so that people do not simply dismiss His message as that of another fanatic, and end up losing out on the gifts that sharing in Christ’s righteousness will yield: goodness, leading to love. No false prophet would want that for a people. And so we come to 2 Peter 2.
March 22nd, 2010 at 5:37 am
By the way, I must clarify that salvation is not something that you can “lose”, but it is something that you would give up. Based on the Christians I have known in my life (including myself), here is my general rule of thumb: if you wonder whether you have, then you haven’t.