2 Peter 1:1

2 Peter 1:1. Simon Peter. In the First Epistle the writer designates himself simply by the new name of grace, Peter, which he received from Christ. Here he gives the combined name which is found occasionally in the Gospels (Luke 5:8; John 13:6; John 20:2; John 21:15; of also Matthew 4:18; Matthew 10:2; Mark 3:16; Luke 6:14; Acts 10:5; Acts 11:13). The change in the personal designation of the author has been held by some to betray the spuriousness of the Epistle. By others it has been taken as a clear, though minor, witness to its genuineness. It can scarcely be said to have much weight either way; although it may go so far to establish the independence of the composition. It would certainly be less likely that a forger should adopt this style of address, than that he should make it identical with that used by the writer for whom he gives himself out. Some, again (e.g. Besser), think the change due to the fact that the full name, Simon Peter, has a ‘kind of testamentary form,' and suits one who feels the end of his life near. Others (e.g. Plumptre) explain it as occurring perhaps simply through a change of amanuensis. The reason, however, may be that the writer has it in view to emphasize in the present connection his own Jewish origin, and enlist sympathetic attention to his admonitions, by exhibiting at the outset the common platform of grace on which Jewish Christians like himself and Gentile Christians like his readers stood. This becomes clearer if we read Symeon instead of Simon, The best ancient authorities vary so much between these two forms that it is difficult to say which is to be preferred. The form Simon is used both by Christ (Matthew 17:25) and by Peter's fellow-believers (Luke 24:34). Occasionally it seems as if Jesus fell back upon that name as the old name of nature, which excited humbling thoughts of the past in the mind of the Apostle (of. Mark 14:37; Luke 22:31; John 21:15-17). Symeon is the distinctively Hebraic or Aramaic form, the one probably in familiar use among the Jews themselves. To Peter himself it is given only once elsewhere, viz. by James, the spokesman of the Jerusalem Convention (Acts 15:14). In the N. T. it is the form used in the case of the aged saint who received the infant Jesus into his arms in the temple (Luke 2:25; Luke 2:34), in that of the son of Juda (Luke 3:30), in that of Niger (Acts 13:1), and in that of the Israelite tribe (Revelation 7:7). In the Greek translation of the O. T. it is regularly employed as the name of the patriarch Simeon.

bond-servant and apostle of Jesus Christ. The official designation. It differs from its parallel in the former Epistle in setting the general title, which covers all kinds of office or service, before the definite title which marks the particular dignity of office held by Peter. The combined designation, in this form, is peculiar to the present Epistle. It most resembles that adopted by Paul in Romans 1:1 and Titus 1:1. In his other Epistles Paul styles himself either simply ‘servant' (Philippians 1:1), or simply ‘apostle' (1Co 1:1; 2 Corinthians 1:1; Galatians 1:1; Ephesians 1:1; Colossians 1:1; 1 Timothy 1:1; 2 Timothy 1:1); and in the Epistles of James and Jude ‘servant' is the one title employed. It is questioned whether the term has here the official sense or the non-official. On the ground of the general application of the word ‘servant' or ‘bond-servant' in such passages as Romans 6:22; Ephesians 6:6, etc., it is argued that here too it expresses nothing more than dependence on Christ, devotion to His cause, and readiness to serve Him as any Christian may serve Him. In the N. T., however, the word occurs not only as the title used in inscriptions, but also in connections where it seems interchangeable with the term ‘minister' (Colossians 1:7; Colossians 4:7; Colossians 4:12). In the O. T., too, the title ‘servant of Jehovah' is a familiar official description (e.g. Joshua 1:1; Joshua 24:29; Jeremiah 29:19; Isaiah 42:1, etc.); while Moses is designated distinctively the ‘servant of God' (1 Chronicles 6:49). Hence it is most probably intended here to express the general idea of office, of which the apostleship was a special and distinguishing instance. ‘It has been also properly remarked that, as the expression, servant of Christ, implies implicit obedience and subjection, it supposes the Divine authority of the Redeemer. That is, we find the Apostle denying that he was the servant of men, rejecting all human authority as it regards matters of faith and duty, and yet professing the most al-solute subjection of conscience and reason to the authority of Jesus Christ' (Hodge on Romans 1:1).

to them that obtained like precious faith with us. From chap. 2 Peter 3:1 we may perhaps infer that the Epistle was meant, in the first instance at least, for the persons addressed in the former Epistle. They are designated here, however, neither by their territorial distribution nor by their election, but by their community with others in faith. It is possible that by the ‘faith' here we are to understand faith in the objective sense, the deposit of truth, the sum of the things believed. So it is taken by not a few excellent interpreters (Huther, Alford, Wiesinger, etc.), who suppose it borne out by the objective use of the term ‘truth' in 2 Peter 1:12, and the similar use of the term ‘faith' in Jude 1:3. The subjective sense, however, seems more in accordance with the statement on the subject of the faith of the Gentiles made by Peter himself before the convention at Jerusalem (Acts 15:9). It is also more in place here, where the writer proceeds at once to deal with the experience of the readers and their duty to grow in grace It is therefore of the grace of faith in Christ that Peter speaks. And of this he affirms first that it came to them as a gift of God. This verb ‘obtained' is one which occurs again only thrice in the N. T. (Luke 1:9; John 19:24; Acts 1:17), in which last passage Peter himself is the speaker. It means property to have by let or assignment. It is put in the simple past (‘obtained,' rather than ‘ have obtained'), the gift of grace which brought with it this new belief being regarded as a thing definitely bestowed at a former crisis in their life. The faith in possession of which they were thus placed, neither by their own power nor of their own right, is affirmed secondly to be for that reason ‘equally precious,' or ‘of like worth,' with that of others like the writer himself. This compound adjective, ‘like-precious,' occurs only here. It may be compared, however, with the repeated appearance of the idea of preciousness in the former Epistle (1 Peter 1:7; 1 Peter 1:19; 1 Peter 2:4; 1 Peter 2:6-7). The A. V. follows the felicitous rendering of Tyndale, Cranmer, and the Genevan. Wycliffe gives ‘the even faith.' The Rhemish not less unhappily translates it ‘equal faith.' But what is asserted is not the possession of the same measure of faith, but the possession of a faith which, by whomsoever enjoyed, has the same value in the sight of Him from whom it comes as a gift of grace. The persons referred to in the phrase ‘with us' are not the apostles as such, but the class of Christians, Jewish-Christians to wit, to whom the writer himself belonged. There is nothing in the New Testament to indicate the existence of ideas which made it necessary to assert that with God the faith of ordinary believers was not inferior in worth to that of apostles. But there is much to show (of. Acts 11:17; Acts 15:9-11, etc.) how alien it was to primitive Christian thought to regard Gentile Christians as occupying in grace the selfsame platform with Christians gathered out of the ancient Church of God.

in the righteousness. The ‘through' of the A. V. is an inexact rendering. The preposition used points to that (the sphere, e.g., or the spirit) in which a thing is done. The term ‘righteousness' is not to be diluted into ‘goodness,' or transformed into ‘faithfulness.' Neither has it here the theological sense of justifying righteousness, the gift of righteousness (Luther, etc.), or imputed lighteousness. That is a Pauline rather than a Petrine use. It is inconsistent, too, with the ascription of this righteousness both to God and to Christ. Nor, again, can the term be taken as equivalent to the state of justification (Schott, etc.). For this would represent the faith as coming by righteousness, instead of the righteousness as coming by faith. Other glosses upon the word, e.g. the righteous life of conformity to God's will (Brückner), the kingdom of righteousness (Dietlein), are still less in place. The only sense that will suit the context (where the equality of Jew and Gentile in respect of faith is in view) is the broad sense of the rectitude, or righteous impartiality, of God and Christ. This, too, is an idea entirely characteristic of Peter. Compare his statement of the absence of all respect of persons with God in 1 Peter 1:17, and his assertion of the same truth in connection with the admission of the Gentiles (Acts 11:34). The phrase, therefore, is to be connected neither with the ‘faith,' as if the faith affirmed was a faith in the righteousness of God; nor with the ‘like-precious,' as if Peter meant that the faith of Gentile Christians had the same worth with that of Jewish Christians in the matter of a justified state or righteous life. It goes immediately with the ‘obtained,' and expresses the fact that this faith became theirs by the gift of Him with whom there is no favouritism, no making of arbitrary distinctions between class and class.

of our God and the Saviour Jesus Christ. It is a question whether Jesus Christ is simply associated here with God, or is identified as both God and Saviour. The old English Versions prior to the A. V. adopted the latter idea, rendering not ‘God and our Saviour,' but ‘our God and Saviour.' The R. V. adheres to this in its text, but prudently inserts the rendering of the A. V. in its margin. The decision turns upon the application of a nice principle in the use of the Greek article, namely, that when two nouns of the same case, and under the rule of a single article prefixed to the former, are united by ‘and,' they describe one and the same object. Instances of this are seen in the designations of Christ in 2 Peter 1:11 and chap. 2 Peter 3:18. Grammatically this principle might seem to apply very distinctly to the present case, and so it has been understood by many interpreters, including Schott, Hofmann, Dietlein, Wordsworth, etc. The last-named expositor argues further, that a declaration of Christ's Divinity was very pertinent here, because the Epistle ‘was designed to repel the errors of those who separated Jesus from Christ, and denied the Lord that bought them, and rejected the doctrine of His Divinity.' The rule is subject, however, to certain checks which make its application here, as also in Titus 2:13, somewhat doubtful. Peter does not elsewhere call Christ directly God, although he repeatedly names Him Lord. The term God is nowhere attached immediately to Christ, or Jesus Christ, as is the case with Lord in the phrase ‘the Lord Christ,' ‘the Lord Jesus Christ, ‘our Lord Jesus Christ.' In the very next sentence, too, Peter distinguishes the two subjects, God and Jesus our Lord. It is precarious, therefore, to insist upon the grammatical principle here, and so the larger number of interpreters (Calvin, Huther, Alford, Fronmüller, Wiesinger, Lumby, Mason, etc.) hold that two subjects are in view here, God the Father and Jesus Christ the Saviour, although Peter speaks of a righteousness of action which belongs to both.