2 Peter 3:18

But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ The final thought of the Epistle, like that with which it opened, is the growth of the Christian life. Here, as there (chap. 2 Peter 1:5), stress is laid on knowledge as an element of growth, partly as essential to completeness in the Christian life, partly also, perhaps, in reference to the "knowledge falsely so called" (1 Timothy 6:20) of which the false teachers boasted.

To him be glory both now and for ever. Amen The word "glory" in the Greek has the article, which makes it include all the glory which men were wont, in their doxologies, to ascribe to God. The Apostle has learnt the full meaning of the words "that all men should honour the Son, even as they honour the Father" (John 5:23). The effect of his teaching may be traced in the Churches to which the letter was mainly addressed, in Pliny's account of the worship of Christians in the Asiatic provinces, as including "a hymn sung to Christ as to God" (Ep. ad Trajan. 96). The Greek phrase for "for ever" (literally, for the day of the æon, or eternity) is a peculiar one, and expresses the thought that "the day" of which the Apostle had spoken in 2 Peter 3:10; 2 Peter 3:12 would be one which should last through the new æon that would then open, and to which no time-limits could be assigned.

The absence of any salutations, like those with which the First Epistle ended, is, perhaps, in part due to the wider and more encyclical character which marks the Second. The Apostle was content that his last words should be on the one hand an earnest entreaty that men should "grow" to completeness in their spiritual life, and, on the other, the ascription of an eternal glory to the Lord and Master whom he loved.