Sermon for Flinders Park Church January 2019
Instead of working through a topic, I have chosen to work through a book, in this case, 2 Peter. The choice was based on two things: first, I have not heard it preached on; and second, I think the apostle Peter approaches things in a different way to the apostle Paul, who we are no doubt more familiar with.
It being the first month of the year, it seems right to ground ourselves afresh in the knowledge of redemption. I think that this is in keeping with what we find in Exodus regarding the Passover feast. In the middle of the book of Exodus, after the ninth plague and before the final plague, there is a description of Passover. It begins with this important instruction: “The LORD said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, ‘This month shall be for you the beginning of months. It shall be the first month of the year for you’” (Exod. 12:1-2 ESV). God commanded that the month of Nisan become the first month of the year because this month marks the event that defines Israel as a nation. Passover commemorates the day in which God delivered his people from slavery in Egypt.
The first month of the Jewish calendar is first because during that month God redeemed the Israelite people. January is not the month of our redemption as such. But is usually the month in which people begin afresh with New Year’s resolutions and plans for the coming year. Instead of resolutions, it is appropriate that we revisit the fundamentals of our redemption at the beginning of the year, because redemption is the beginning and basis of the Christian life. The Greeting that begins 2 Peter gives speaks of the foundation of our redemption. In these two verses are some very important basics of the faith.
ESV 2 Peter 1:1 Simeon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, To those who have obtained a faith of equal standing with ours by the righteousness of our God and Saviour Jesus Christ: 2 May grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.
Peter begins by giving himself the designation “servant and apostle of Jesus Christ”. Let’s pull this apart a little. The word ‘servant’ here is perhaps better translated as ‘bond-servant’, or ‘slave’. There are two possible ways we might read this. Great leaders in Israel – Moses (Deut 34:5 etc.), Joshua (Jos 24:29), and David (Ps 18:1), and Isaiah (Isa 20:3) – are called by the title servant of God or servant of the LORD. Israel is also called the servant of the LORD (Isa 41:8; 49:3). Similarly, Paul called himself a servant of Christ (Rom 1:1). So are Timothy (Phil 1:1), James (James 1:1) and Jude (Jude 1:1) called the servants of God or of Jesus. Because of this we might read the statement of Peter that he is the servant of the Jesus Christ as a claim to leadership in the church. If that is true then it certainly makes sense with his statement that he is an apostle of Christ. But there is another way of reading this.
A bond-servant or slave was considered the property of the master and had no rights as such. The master could and did order the slave to do whatever he liked and the slave obeyed that order without question. Slaves did not own anything of their own. The master owned even the life of the slave. This is the kind of servant that Jesus came to be according to Phil 2:5-8. The Son of God emptied himself of all his rights and lived like a human being at the bottom rung of society. His whole life was lived in utter obedience to his master, God the Father. Christians in general are designated as servants of God in this sense. We are completely owned by Jesus because he has purchased us with his own blood (Rev 5:9). Ours is to do the will of God and not our own will. In yielding to Christ as Lord we become people without rights in a sense. The Christian’s only task in life is to live for Jesus Christ. “He died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised” (2 Cor. 5:15 ESV). The whole church consists of people who are the servants of Jesus Christ (Rev 1:1).
So we can conclude that Peter introduces himself as both servant and apostle of Jesus Christ because he wants to remind his readers that he is a leader in the church but also he is one who belongs completely and utterly to Jesus. His life is not his own. Knowing this is reassuring because the one who owns us also directs us. It is not really up to us to make our lives work as such; Jesus is the captain of the ship of our lives. He is in control and we are not as in control as we imagine. I know that I cannot bring about the good that God desires in my life, but I know that the one who owns me completely is utterly able to do so. We can say with Paul, “And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Phil. 1:6 ESV).
The order of these two titles is therefore important. Servant comes before apostle. Peter was owned by Christ before he was given a task to do for Jesus. The fact that he is the servant of Jesus Christ takes precedence over his gifts and calling to ministry. This is true of all of us as well. Regardless of what we are called to do, we are first and foremost servants of Jesus Christ, owned by him and hence called to absolute obedience to him as master. Only because this is true does God give gifts or call us to ministry in the kingdom of God. We might say that who and what we are takes precedence over what we do.
Having introduced himself, Peter then addresses his readers: “To those who have obtained a faith of equal standing with ours”. The word ‘obtained’ is a word used of appointing government officials; they were assigned particular posts by lot. It can mean chosen by lot or chosen by the divine will. The implication of this word is that we have obtained a faith; it was not attained through our own efforts. Although God is not mentioned directly here, it is plain that our faith has been given to us because of what God has done. This is quite consistent with other passages in the New Testament. For instance, in 1 Cor 1:27-31 we are told, “But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; 28 God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, 29 so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. 30 And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, 31 so that, as it is written, ‘Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.’” Eph 2:8 states something similar: “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God.” God’s work for us and in us comes prior to and takes precedence over whatever action we take in regard to faith.
Not only does God work to give us faith, but that faith is of equal standing and just as precious as the faith of the apostle Peter. Peter spent three years walking with Jesus, witnessing his miracles first hand, and listening to his teaching in person. He learned about Jesus directly, not from someone else. His eyewitness accounts are recorded in the New Testament. He was the first disciple to make the confession that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God (Matt 16:16). And yet God has chosen to grant others a faith that has equal standing and equal preciousness to that of the greatest apostle. You and I do not have an inferior faith just because we have not seen Jesus in the flesh. We have been granted by God something beyond precious and no distance of time or geography can take away the value of that faith.
This happened “by the righteousness of our God and Saviour Jesus Christ”. In this case righteousness is not the same as in Paul’s writings, where it is the sort that justifies the ungodly. Rather, when Peter speaks of the righteousness of God he means God’s justice or God’s fairness. So God allots the same faith to everyone because he is fair and impartial; he is just. He does not give inferior faith to us because we are not Jews, or because we are not apostles or because we live 2000 years after the Bible was written. None of these things matter because God is by nature righteous and just.
Peter goes on to express his wish for the recipients of the letter, “May grace and peace be multiplied to you”. This greeting is quite common in the letters of the New Testament. It is more than a fantasy wish; Peter fully expected that it will be fulfilled for them because our God is a God who answers prayer. There are two parts to the ‘wish’. Grace is the foundation of our salvation. Without the grace of God towards us we would never experience the life of God. It is therefore vital to experience this grace. While grace is the basis of salvation, peace is the content of salvation. We have peace with God and therefore are able to come to him with confidence. Peter was a Hebrew and the Hebrew word for peace is shalom. Shalom includes a wide range of meaning: completeness, wholeness, health, peace, friendship, happiness, kindness, wellbeing, salvation. So what Peter is wishing for his readers is all that salvation brings through the abundant grace of God, and he wishes that this would not merely come to them but be multiplied to them. Rather than a static experience of God’s grace and the salvation that comes with that, Peter expresses the wish that they would experience more and more of what God has for them.
The experience of grace and peace is found “in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.” Knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord is not merely knowledge about God but rather personal knowledge. Of course knowing someone involves knowing about that person, their likes and dislikes, their foibles, their moods, what they do and do not do, how they act, etc. But knowing these things alone is not personal knowledge. Fairly recently I read a biography of the last Emperor of Japan. I may know many things about him but not know him personally. He was never my friend and I could not go to visit him or have his company because I did not know him personally. The kind of knowledge that this letter is referring to here is the kind of personal knowledge that comes as a result of genuine conversion. We are able to know our God and Saviour Lord Jesus and experience his presence and favour; we do not merely know something about him.
It might be possible to know someone without knowing much by way of facts about them, but that situation would not last long. As you spent time with the person you would get to know things about their life. This is what you would expect if you get to know God as well. So it is not surprising that this greeting gives us knowledge of a couple of very important facts about God. Verse one speaks of “the righteousness of our God and Saviour Jesus Christ”. It is generally agreed that this expression is speaking of one person, Jesus Christ. In other words, it calls Jesus “our God and Saviour”. These two titles – God and Saviour – go together in that Saviour is a title for the God of Israel. In Isaiah 43:11 God declares, “I, I am the LORD, and besides me there is no saviour.” He makes this same claim again in Isa. 43:11; 45:21; 49:26 and 60:16. Even if we were to argue over the grammar of this sentence, as some people have, it is impossible to get past the fact that this verse calls Jesus Saviour, and there is only one saviour, the God of Israel. So the divinity of Christ is affirmed here at the beginning of the letter.
But verse two gives us another piece of information about Jesus. The expression “the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord” speaks of two persons not one. We can have knowledge of God and also knowledge of Jesus our Lord. This is an early indication of the doctrine of the Trinity, although certainly not in its full-blown form. Both God the Father and God the Son are mentioned together, but not the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is mentioned many times in 1 Peter and just the once in 2 Peter. So we can conclude from these two verses that Jesus is truly God and yet not all that there is to God.
In these first few verses we see that the one who has made possible grace and peace is called Christ (that is, the Messiah), God, Saviour and Lord. The significance of these titles is evident in the rest of the letter. For now, it is enough that we begin the year with the solid foundation of our redemption. This underpins all that we are, all that we will do, and all that we hope for in the year to come.