What does Peter mean when he urges the recipients of his letter to "confirm their calling and election"? As for election, the apostle, as we can see, holds a view of...
What does Peter mean when he urges the recipients of his letter to "confirm their calling and election"? As for election, the apostle, as we can see, holds a view of the Messiah and of the messianic remnant that was quite traditional for his time, the remnant that grows into a new people who meet and receive the Messiah. According to these Jewish ideas, the Messiah, like the people of God, was conceived by God before the creation of the world. Of course, God's design concerned not individual people, but the people as a whole, as a covenant people, a community of the faithful whose main historical task would be to preserve the revelation received from God until the day of the Messiah's coming, when that revelation would become available to everyone who receives the Messiah.
As for individual people, much here was determined by a person's free choice: after all, being born a Jew was not enough; one had to realize in one's life the calling that was potentially given to everyone born a Jew. To realize a spiritual calling without personal choice is plainly impossible, so belonging to the people of God was determined not only by birth but also by one's whole life. The apostle, as we can see, applies this traditional idea to the Church, and that is no surprise: a person can be born a Jew, but people are not born Christians, even though the Church, like the Messiah Himself, was undoubtedly conceived by God before the creation of the world. And everyone who is joined to it is joined to this design, becoming part of it, becoming one of God's chosen. But it is not enough to enter the Church once; one must also live in it. The Church is the earthly dimension of the Kingdom, and if one can live in the Kingdom only by making constant spiritual efforts not to lose it, the same can be said of life in the Church; otherwise election is easy to lose.
It would seem that a calling from God is forever. But a calling too is only a possibility; it still has to be unfolded throughout one's whole life, or else it will die without ever being manifested. And Peter does not tire of reminding his readers of this, perhaps because even in his time people had begun to appear in the Church who sincerely believed that their first step on the spiritual path was already its successful and victorious completion, that salvation and the fullness of life in the Kingdom were guaranteed to them simply because they had entrusted themselves to their Savior and received baptism. The apostle, as we can see, wants to dispel this delusion in them, for it could easily cost them their salvation. Salvation is easy to lose and very hard to find again afterward.
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1:1 To them that have obtained - Not by their own works, but by the free grace of God. Like precious faith with us - The apostles. The faith of those who have not seen, beingequally precious with that of those who saw our Lord in the flesh. Through the righteousness - Both active and passive.Of our God and Saviour - It is this alone by which the justice of God is satisfied, and for the sake of which he gives this precious faith.
1:2 Through the divine, experimental knowledge of God and of Christ.
1:3 As his divine power has given us all things - There is a wonderful cheerfulness in this exordium, which begins with the exhortation itself. That pertain to life and godliness - To the present, natural life, and to the continuance and increase of spiritual life. Through that divine knowledge of him - Of Christ.Who hath called us by - His own glorious power, to eternal glory, as the end; by Christian virtue or fortitude, as the means.
1:4 Through which - Glory and fortitude. He hath given us exceeding great, and inconceivably precious promises - Both the promises and the things promised, which follow in their due season, that, sustained and encouraged by the promises, we may obtain all that he has promised. That, having escaped the manifold corruption which is in the world - From that fruitful fountain, evil desire. Ye may become partakers of the divine nature - Being renewed in the image of God, and having communion with them, so as to dwell in God and God in you.
1:5 For this very reason - Because God hath given you so great blessings. Giving all diligence - It is a very uncommon word which we render giving. It literally signifies, bringing in by the by, or over and above: implying, that good works the work; yet not unless we are diligent. Our diligence is to follow the gift of God, and is followed by an increase of all his gifts. Add to - And in all the other gifts of God. Superadd the latter, without losing the former. The Greek word properly means lead up, as in dance, one of these after the other, in a beautiful order. Your faith, that "evidence of things not seen," termed before "the knowledge of God and of Christ," the root of all Christian graces. Courage - Whereby ye may conquer all enemies and difficulties, and execute whatever faith dictates. In this most beautiful connexion, each preceding grace leads to the following; each following, tempers and perfects the preceding. They are set down in the order of nature, rather than the order of time. For though every grace bears a relation to every other, yet here they are so nicely ranged, that those which have the closest dependence on each other are placed together. And to your courage knowledge - Wisdom, teaching how to exercise it on all occasions.
1:6 And to your knowledge temperance; and to your temperance patience - Bear and forbear; sustain and abstain; deny yourself and take up your cross daily. The more knowledge you have, the more renounce your own will; indulge yourself the less. "Knowledge puffeth up," and the great boasters of knowledge (the Gnostics) were those that "turned the grace of God into wantonness." But see that your knowledge be attended with temperance. Christian temperance implies the voluntary abstaining from all pleasure which does not lead to God. It extends to all things inward and outward: the due government of every thought, as well as affection. "It is using the world," so to use all outward, and so to restrain all inward things, that they may become a means of what is spiritual; a scaling ladder to ascend to what is above. Intemperance is to abuse the world. He that uses anything below, looking no higher, and getting no farther, is intemperate. He that uses the creature only so as to attain to more of the Creator, is alone temperate, and walks as Christ himself walked. And to patience godliness - Its proper support: a continual sense of God's presence andprovidence, and a filial fear of, and confidence in, him; otherwise your patience may be pride, surliness, stoicism; but not Christianity.
1:7 And to godliness brotherly kindness - No sullenness, sternness, moroseness: "sour godliness," so called, is of the devil. Of Christian godliness it may always be said, "Mild, sweet, serene, and tender is her mood, Nor grave with sternness, nor with lightness free: Against example resolutely good, Fervent in zeal, and warm in charity."And to brotherly kindness love - The pure and perfect love of God and of all mankind. The apostle here makes an advance upon the preceding article, brotherly kindness, which seems only to relate to the love of Christians toward one another.
1:8 For these being really in you - Added to your faith.And abounding - Increasing more and more, otherwise we fall short. Make you neither slothful nor unfruitful - Do not suffer you to be faint in your mind, or without fruit in your lives.If there is less faithfulness, less care and watchfulness, since we were pardoned, than there was before, and less diligence, less outward obedience, than when we were seeking remission of sin, we are both slothful and unfruitful in the knowledge of Christ, that is, in the faith, which then cannot work by love.
1:9 But he that wanteth these - That does not add them to his faith. Is blind - The eyes of his understanding are again closed. He cannot see God, or his pardoning love. He has lost the evidence of things not seen. Not able to see afar off - Literally, purblind. He has lost sight of the preciouspromises: perfect love and heaven are equally out of his sight.Nay, he cannot now see what himself once enjoyed. Having, as it were, forgot the purification from his former sins - Scarce knowing what he himself then felt, when his sins were forgiven.
1:10 Wherefore - Considering the miserable state of these apostates. Brethren - St. Peter nowhere uses this appellation in either of his epistles, but in this important exhortation.Be the more diligent - By courage, knowledge, temperance, etc To make your calling and election firm - God hath called you by his word and his Spirit; he hath elected you, separated you from the world, through sanctification of the Spirit. O cast not away these inestimable benefits! If ye are thus diligent to make your election firm, ye shall never finally fall.
1:11 For if ye do so, an entrance shall be ministered to you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom - Ye shall go in full triumph to glory.