Kootenai Church Morning Worship

Second Peter 1, beginning in verse 1. We'll read the first four verses.
1 Simeon Peter, a slave and apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who have received the same kind of faith as ours, by the righteousness of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ:
2 Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the full knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord;
3 seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the full knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence.
4 For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust. (LSB)
We didn't get quite as far last week as I had hoped to. I had hoped to get through the end of verse 2, but we stopped off after the end of verse 1, having looked at the author of the Epistle and the audience to whom he was writing. Verse 2 contains a blessing, a well-wishing from Peter to his audience. And it's OK now to sort of pick this up and kind of go through it rather quickly as part of the introduction to verses 3–4 because verses 3–4 sort of explain what the multiplication of grace and peace in verse 2 looks like, as well as sort of prepare us for the moral imperatives that are later on in chapter 1.
So this passage, verses 1–4, entails God's provision and describes God's provision of everything that we need for life and godliness. Peter has already in verse 1 said that we have received a faith of the same kind as his, meaning that God has gifted to His people, granted us, the faith to believe, granting not only repentance from sin but also the faith to reach out and to embrace the promises and commands of the gospel. It is a received faith, it is a righteous faith. We talked about that last week. It is a faith that brings to us a righteousness that we do not have any right or claim to. It is the perfect and unblemished righteousness of Christ given to us on the basis of faith.
And then in verse 2, there is a standard or typical blessing that we read in other New Testament Epistles: “Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the full knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.” A standard blessing. Grace is God's unmerited favor. God's grace to us is full. He deals with all of His creation in grace because none of His creation deserves any kindness. It doesn't merit any kindness or favor from Him whatsoever. So God in His grace must deal with all people, believers and unbelievers. Every good gift that an unbeliever enjoys, he enjoys simply by the gracious goodness of a God who doesn't at that very moment plunge him into everlasting ruin and destruction. So that is an act of grace. Every breath that the unbeliever takes is an act of God's grace in extending his life and preserving him from punishment at that very moment.
Peace is peace with God, also peace with men; it can be taken either way. I would take it here to refer to peace with God as well as peace in believing and peace in our flourishing. Peter is saying he wants these things—God's grace and God's peace—to be multiplied so that not only would we receive these in salvation but that we would come to a greater and deeper knowledge and understanding of what it means to live in grace and to walk in grace and to know the peace of God which surpasses understanding in our own souls and hearts, as well as to extend that peace to other people, as having been reconciled to God, we are now reconciled to one another. Peace with God comes first, peace with our fellow man comes after that. So having received that peace, Peter wants us to flourish in it, to abundantly lavish ourselves in God's grace and peace, and all this comes to us through a true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence.
Notice in verse 2 the reference to “the full knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.” This is coming to know Christ in a saving way. And this idea of knowing and knowledge is a key feature of the book of 2 Peter. I'm going to return to it because you'll notice down in verse 3, he mentions that true knowledge again: “Seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence.” So verse 3 kind of expands upon the multiplication of grace and peace in verse 2, and he mentions knowledge there, so we'll come back around to that when we get sort of to the end of it in verse 3.
Now as we zoom in—all that kind of by way of introduction—now as we zoom in on verses 3–4, I want you to be aware of two things in the text before we get to our outline this morning. The first is that depending on what translation you are reading, you're going to notice that there is a punctuation issue with verse 2 and verse 3. And different translations will punctuate the translation differently depending on how they understand this.
So you will notice that—let me back up and say this. I mentioned a couple weeks ago that the language, the grammar, the Greek of 2 Peter is less polished than the language and the grammar of 1 Peter. Already here at verse 2 we kind of run into this. Should verse 3 be taken with verse 2, or is it more of an introduction? Is it a stand-alone sentence?
So depending on your translation, the NIV and the ESV start a new sentence with verse 3. It just says, “His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness” (ESV). Other translations, like the LSB and the NASB, put a semicolon or a comma at the end of verse 2 and say, “Seeing that His divine power has granted to us . . .” (2 Pet. 1:3 LSB) In other words, they take it as sort of an explanation of what multiplied grace and peace would look like in the life of a believer. May grace and peace be multiplied to you, seeing or understanding, since it is true, that He has granted to you everything that pertains to life and godliness.
So which one is it? Is verse 3 its own stand-alone sentence? You might wonder, Can't we just go back to the Greek and see how Peter originally wrote it? Did he put a period at the end of verse 2, or did he put a comma at the end of verse 2? We could do that, except the Greek text doesn't have any punctuation. They didn't use punctuation in the first century. Not only that, but they didn't use capitalization either. So sometimes it's hard to tell what's the beginning of a sentence. They didn't use sentence capitalization like we do, and they didn't use punctuation like we do. If you were to read it, it just looks like one long run-on sentence without any punctuation for proper names or proper nouns or the start of the sentence or anything like that. So we have to judge from the context—what is Peter saying?
I think that verse 3 serves to do two things. It serves to illustrate for us or explain to us how it is that God can multiply grace and peace to us. He can do this because He has granted to us everything that pertains to life and godliness. So it's not just salvation, but through our salvation life God can continue to pour out grace and peace to us as we come to know Christ more and more over the course of our life because He has already granted to us everything that pertains to life and godliness.
A second thing I want you to notice is that verses 3–4 are necessary to understand and rightly interpret the moral commands of verses 5–7. Look at verses 5–7:
5 Now for this very reason also, applying all diligence, in your faith supply moral excellence, and in your moral excellence, knowledge,
6 and in your knowledge, self-control, and in your self-control, perseverance, and in your perseverance, godliness,
7 and in your godliness, brotherly kindness, and in your brotherly kindness, love. (LSB)
Now with those things, you will be useful and fruitful—that's verse 8. Without them, you are blind and nearsighted—that's verse 9. Without these virtues you will fall—that's verse 10. And with these virtues you will have abundant entrance into the kingdom that will be supplied to you.
Now, that's daunting because every single one of us probably here in this room reads through this list—faith, moral excellence, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, brotherly kindness, and love—and if Peter had begun with that list, if verse 3 started with that list in verse 5, you would be exasperated. You would be frustrated. But Peter doesn't begin with that. Instead, he begins not with the command that we work out our own salvation with fear and trembling, but instead, Peter begins with verses 3–4, which says this is what God has done. Begin there. This is what God has done.
Now, in light of what God has done, apply all diligence to add to your faith these virtues: moral excellence, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, brotherly kindness, and love. God has granted to you faith. He has brought you to a knowledge of Himself. He has given you grace and peace and multiplied it to you. He has granted everything that pertains to life and godliness. So in verses 3–4 we have divine provision for our godliness, and in verses 5–11 we're told that we must diligently pursue our godliness. God's divine provision comes first, then our diligent pursuit comes after that. In verses 3–4 he says you've been granted grace, you've been granted faith, you've been given peace, you've been given the knowledge of Christ, He has granted you everything that pertains to life and godliness. He has called you by His own glory and excellence, He has given you precious and magnificent promises, He has made you partakers of the divine nature, and He has brought you out of the corruption that is in the world by lust. That's verses 3–4.
Now in light of that, Peter says, diligently pursue godliness. Apply all diligence and make your calling and your choosing, your election, make those things sure. Now without verses 3–4, Peter would be teaching either moralism or synergism, or both. Moralism is the teaching that says that the goal of Christianity is simply our moral reformation, that we are immoral people, we're unvirtuous people, and that if we simply reform ourselves morally, learn to live better, we will gain God's favor, earn God's righteousness, earn God's blessing, and then we will escape this world and enter into the kingdom that is to come. That is moralism, that the things you do enter you into that kingdom. And moralism teaches that Christianity is just a moral system. Well, Christianity has a moral system, but Christianity is not a moral system. There's a difference.
Without verses 3–4, Peter would be teaching moralism or synergism. Synergism is the belief that—and it is opposed to monergism (mono, meaning “one”), which teaches that God is the one who does the work of salvation. It's one person's, one being's, work. God is the one who does it. That's monergism. Synergism is God does His part, He brings us this far, and now you and I have to do the rest and contribute to our salvation so that there is this synergistic work between God and man that accomplishes salvation. Without verses 3 and 4, Peter would be saying, “You do all of these things and you will get entrance into the kingdom. God has provided for you in Christ to a point. Now He needs you to fill in all of the gaps and to do the rest.”
But Peter is neither a moralist nor a synergist. And instead he is saying, “Here is what God has done for you.” Before you could do anything, you received faith. Before you could live righteously, He imputed the righteousness of Christ to you. And before you could do anything, He provided everything. The call to godliness in verses 5–11 is rooted and grounded in God's provision in verses 3–4. So we have to focus on that provision, and that's what we're going to start doing this morning.
God in Christ—here's the main idea of the text—God in Christ has provided everything we need to live an obedient, holy, and God-honoring life in this world. God has provided everything we need to live an obedient, holy, and God-honoring life in this world. We're going to notice three things. He has done this by the power of Christ, in the Person of Christ, and by the promises of Christ.
First, in verse 3, His power supplies us everything for holiness. Look at it. “Seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness . . .” That's His power. He has given to us everything for our holiness. Second, we're going to notice His Person has summoned us to this holiness. That's in verse 3. He's done this “through the true knowledge of Him [that is, Christ] who called us by His own glory and excellence” (v. 3). And then third, we're going to notice His promises motivate us to holiness in verse 4: “For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust.” So His power supplies us for everything we need for holiness, His person summons us to this holiness, and then His promises motivate us to holiness.
Let's look first at His power. And if you're thinking we'll get through all of those, I'm going to spoil it for you right off the top of the table. We're going to get to His power, which has provided for us everything we need, because the working out of that one point should take me more than the time that we have left, but I'm going to fit it into the time that we have left.
“His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness.” That's verse 3. Your salvation is a work of divine power from first to last. He chose you in Christ from before the foundation of the world. He has ordained and preordained everything that comes to pass in your life and everything that happens to you. He has atoned for your sin; He raises the dead; He justifies you, the ungodly sinner; He regenerates you, the dead sinner. He draws you, the dead sinner, to salvation, grants you repentance, and grants you the faith to believe.
This is why Paul, after reciting a list similar to what I just read to you, says in Ephesians 1:19 that he prays for the Ephesians so that they may know “what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe.” Notice the reference to power. Paul lists out a big long list of spiritual blessings. And then he says, “I'm praying then that you would come to understand what is His power toward you who believe.”
19 These are in accordance with the working of the strength of His might
20 which He brought about in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places,
21 far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. (Eph. 1:19–21 NASB)
Paul says in Colossians 1:16 that by Christ “all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether [now listen to all these descriptions of power] thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him.” This is the creative power of Christ. That is the power by which He “upholds all things by the word of His power” (Heb. 1:3). In Ephesians 3:20, Paul says, “Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us.”
So it's creating power, resurrecting power, ruling power, sustaining power, regenerating power, upholding power, governing power. Sovereign power has affected your salvation from the first to the last. From before He spoke an atom into existence, the plan of God in redemption was established and ordained. And that same power will carry us—you, me—all the way through to eternal glory. There is nothing that you have ever needed in your Christian life that God has not already provided for you. And there is nothing that you could ever need in your Christian life that God could not provide for you. Nothing you have needed and nothing you ever will need. All that pertains to life and to godliness.
This is what he means when he says He has granted to us everything. And what does that encompass? Everything. It encompasses everything. It's all the things. Every thing—everything, all the things—He has granted to us through the true knowledge of Christ. In fact, the emphasis in the text is on the word everything. It appears at the beginning of the sentence so as to read literally, “Everything to us divine power has granted.” Everything. Peter wants to emphasize that. There is nothing you have needed, nothing you will ever need, nothing you need now, nothing you could ever conceive of that you would ever need in your Christian life to live an obedient, holy, God-honoring life in this world, nothing you have ever needed has not already been provided for you in the Person of Christ. This is total provision, total sufficiency. At the moment of salvation, it was granted to you, and you still possess it.
Peter says everything that pertains to life and everything that pertains to godliness. Now what does he mean by life? Some have suggested that all Peter means by that is just spiritual life, eternal life. The word life there can and is used in the New Testament to refer to both physical life—just being, living, existing—as well as eternal spiritual life that God gives to us that we enjoy with Him, the partaking of the divine nature that continues with us all the way into eternity. It can be used of both. And some try to limit it and say Peter only means here salvation. Everything that pertains to eternal life He has given to you, as if that eternal life has no connection to the life in this world and he's not describing any kind of sufficiency for living out that Christian life in this world in which we live. But you'll notice what's missing from the text: the word eternal or spiritual. Instead he just says life, all that pertains to life and to godliness.
I think that Peter is being intentionally general because though it would include spiritual life, eternal life, it is not—certainly not—limited to eternal or spiritual life. He's describing everything that we need to live our lives as believers called to Christ by His excellence and His glory. Everything that we need from the moment of salvation all the way through to eternal glory has already been granted, given to us, in the Person of His Son through the knowledge of Him, which is salvation.
So sanctification starts here in this life, and that growth in godliness will continue into the life that is to come. We have been made partakers of the divine nature, the next verse says. That spiritual life is what is worked out in this life as we are commanded to “pursue peace with all men, and the [holiness] sanctification without which no one will see the Lord” (Heb. 12:14). And Peter is simply saying everything you have ever needed to live your Christian life in this world in a God-honoring, obedient, and holy fashion is granted to you in the Person of Christ.
We have the motivation for godliness given at the end of chapter 3. By the way, this theme of godliness continues all the way through in chapter 2. You see the false teachers; they deny this godliness. They live ungodly lives. And then in chapter 3, Peter tells us that the coming judgment should motivate us to holy and godly living. Look at 2 Peter 3:11–12: “Since all these things are to be destroyed in this way, what sort of people ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be destroyed by burning, and the elements will melt with intense heat!”
So whatever is necessary for you to be godly has been given to you. Only God can make the ungodly godly. Only God can make the unclean clean, the unholy holy. Only God can sanctify the Christian and make the spiritually dead come spiritually alive. And since only God can do those things, He has in the doing of that thing granted to you everything you need to live an obedient, holy, God-honoring life in this world.
Now this is what is denied by the false teachers, the very ones condemned in chapter 2. False teachers deny this. And it's no coincidence, by the way, that the false teachers who deny that God has given you everything always step up with something to offer you—the very thing that God has denied you. He hasn't given you everything, but guess what, as a teacher, I can give you the very thing that God forgot to give you, and I can help you have that secret to whatever it is that you want or you need. This is the bread and butter of false teachers. They deny the sufficiency of revelation. They say you need a special teacher, you need a spiritual insight, you need certain secrets revealed, maybe through modern prophets or apostles. The key to interpreting Scripture is some deep, hidden meaning, some secret nuance of the text that unlocks the secrets of Christian living. This is what false teachers promise.
This was, in fact, one of the errors of the Galatian heresy in the first century. The Galatians said that having Christ was fine, but you had to add circumcision to that. So Paul would come into a city and preach the gospel. Uncircumcised Gentiles would become converts. And then as soon as he left the city, the false-teaching Judaizers would come in and say, “It's good that you've embraced Christ. Everything Paul said about Christ was right. Yes, it is by faith, but you also need to be circumcised. Have you been circumcised?” “Oh, you might be a Christian,” the Judaizer would say, “but are you a Jewish Christian? See, Jewish Christianity, that's really where it's at. That's where intimacy with God is to be found. You can become a Gentile Christian, but until you become a Jewish Christian, you don't have the fullness of what it means to be a Christian.”
And along comes Paul and says, “You and your false gospel will be damned.” All they added was this one tiny little thing. Now, it doesn't seem to be tiny if you're the one that has to face circumcision; that's kind of a big thing. But in terms of Old Testament law and adding things to the gospel, that seems pretty innocuous, doesn't it? But Paul says that's a different gospel. You don't need Christ plus circumcision. You don't need Christ plus the Old Testament law, plus the ceremonies, plus the Jewish observances, plus the Jewish cultures, plus baptism, plus anything. You have everything in Christ.
Now, here's what some of the modern denials of this sufficiency look like. You might be a Christian, but do you have the Spirit? Well, yeah, I mean you might have the Spirit, but do you have the fullness of the Spirit? Do you really have the deep life and understanding of the Holy Spirit? You might be a Christian, but have you received the gifts of the Spirit? Oh yeah, you have a spiritual gift, but have you received the really good gifts of the Spirit? Tongues and miracles and raising the dead, prophetic utterances, the apostolic office, have you received those? You might be a Christian, but have you received the second baptism of the Spirit? You might be baptized by the Spirit into Christ, but have you been baptized by the Spirit in the Spirit? Once you're baptized by the Spirit in the Spirit, that's where the fullness of your Christian life is.
You might be given a gift, but have you been given a special prayer language? Or have you been given a special anointing? You might be a Christian, but do you have the secret knowledge? Do you have the key to spiritual growth, the key to spiritual understanding, that special insight that really brings you to the point of being above temptation and above sinning? Have you reached the deeper Christian life or the higher life? See, if you prefer deep Christian life, they offer you that. You want the high life? They’ll give you the high Christian life. Have you had this experience, this mystical experience?
You might be a Christian, some people say, but have you been delivered? Have you had all the demons exorcised off you? Heads and shoulders, knees and toes, all the places where demons attach themselves to Christians—have you shed all of those demons? And how do you know that you have a demon? Well, everybody has a demon, haven't you heard? And so you can be a Christian and still have a demon, probably several demons. In fact, if you struggle with sin, it must be demonic influence. It can't possibly be your flesh or your fallenness or your bad habits or your corruption or your unwillingness to obey or your disobedience; it must be demonic. So have you had your demons exorcised from you?
Have you canceled out all your generational curses? Have you canceled out all the demonic claims on your family, your bloodline, your ancestors, and your children? Have you renounced all the sins of your ancestors and your family going back five or six generations? Have you been through an exorcism service or had a deliverance encounter? Have you truly moved into the freedom that is in Christ by having the demons removed from your life and your lineage and your family and your house?
You might believe in Heaven, but have you read the testimony of the little boy who went there? Or how about all the people who've gone to Heaven and lived to tell about it and come back to tell us all about it? You might believe that Heaven exists, but you can't really understand what Heaven is like until you talk to somebody who has gone there and come back to report that to you.
All of these are attacks on sufficiency. All of these things are offered, and so many more, to fill in what is missing in your Christian life and experience, suggesting that you lack something and here's what you need: a church growth methodology, secrets to deliverance, secrets to your spiritual power, secrets to spiritual authority. They’ll say you need a special interpretation of a passage, revealed by the Holy Spirit, unknown to Christians for two thousand years. Special revelation, giving you some special understanding. Special revelation that gives you some special instructions for a decision that you need to make. You need spiritual teachers, special teachers to give you some secret to spiritual growth. You need psychiatry, psychology, philosophy, scientific methodology, special words to say, special prayer mantras, special things to utter, a secret prayer, a special diet. Remember the Daniel Diet?
All of these fads, all of these fashions, they are nothing but garbage. And for everything I have listed, I could take you to amazon.com and give you a hundred books that offer to provide all of these things. That is nothing but a denial of sufficiency. The Prayer of Jabez, Secrets of the Vine, The Secrets to Deliverance, The Secrets to Maintaining Your Deliverance, The Secrets to Generational Curses, The Key to Spiritual Power, The Key to Spiritual Authority, The Secret—you remember that was a book. Not even “The Secrets to . . .” It was just The Secret. And how many Christians bought tens of thousands of copies of The Secret?
“Everything pertaining to life and godliness” (2 Pet. 1:3). What do you need, Christian, to grow in holiness? What do you need to resist temptation? What do you need to mortify sin? What do you need to escape the world's corruption that is in it through lust? What do you need to grow in the grace and knowledge of Christ, to serve the Lord in the church, to serve others, to deny yourself? Men, what else do you need to love your wife, cherish your wife, and live with her in an understanding way? Women, what else do you need to be a good helpmate to your husband? What else do you, parents, need to raise your kids in the fear and admonition of Christ? What else do you need to lead a church, to preach the word, to counsel others, to disciple others, to be a good boss, a good employee, a good neighbor, a good church member? What else do you need for decision-making, knowing the will of God? What else do you need to avoid evil, resist temptation, and to grow in holiness? What else do you need?
Well, God in Christ has provided everything you need to live an obedient, holy, and God-honoring life in this world. He has chosen you in Christ before the foundation of the world. He brought the good news of the gospel to you. He called you to Himself by glory and excellence. He has granted you repentance and turned you from your sin. He has given you the faith to believe. He regenerated your heart and gave you a new heart, took out your heart of stone and gave you a heart of flesh. He opened your eyes to behold the glory of Christ. He opened your heart to respond to the things of the gospel. He gave you a new nature and caused you to be born again through a living hope and the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
He clothed you with His own perfect and unblemished righteousness and credited all your sin to His Son's account. He laid upon your Substitute all the curses of the law and all the wrath that you deserve. He has accepted you in Christ, adopted you into His family, and given you the status of sons and daughters. He has given you the seal of His Spirit. He has made you a partaker of the divine nature through that Spirit which dwells in you. He has given you a spiritual gift to serve Him. He has broken the chains of sin and redeemed you out of the marketplace of sin. He has set you free from the slavery to the world and the world system. He set you free from your slavery to Satan and his demons. He transferred you out of the kingdom of darkness and placed you into the kingdom of light. He has promised you an eternal kingdom of Christ. He has promised you a reward for your faithful service and sacrifice.
He has placed in your life spiritual authorities for your good. He has given you the precious revelation of the ages, His precious Word. He has given you that inspired revelation, an inerrant revelation, and an infallible revelation. He has revealed Himself and His glory to you in the pages of Scripture. He has made Himself known in creation, in your conscience, and in Christ, who took upon Himself a human nature and lived among us so that we could know who He is. And then He has betrothed you to Christ. He disciplines you for your sanctification out of His abundant love and grace, so that you may share in His righteousness and grow in holiness, and He produces in you the peaceful fruits of righteousness.
He has promised you that you will rise again. He has predestined you to an eternal, glorious, resurrected kingdom. He has promised you a new creation, a New Heaven and a New Earth. And He has promised you a glorified body that is free from sin and infirmity. He has purchased all this by His own blood. And He rose again, ascended to the Father's right hand, where He sits even now and intercedes for you until He comes again to judge the living and the dead and He will take you home to be with Him forever.
Now, that's quite a list. But I promise you, I have left out more of that list than I have included. It is in no way exhaustive. He's made you a kingdom of priests to offer spiritual sacrifices. You and I could go on with a list of spiritual blessings that would dwarf the list that I just gave to you.
So I ask you, dear Christian, what more do you need to say no to sin? What more do you need to mortify it and put it to death? What more do you need to walk in holiness, deny yourself, humble yourself, and be obedient? What more do you need to pursue the virtues of a Christian life? What more do you need to motivate you, to keep you interested and transfixed with the glory of Christ? What more do you need to grow? Do you need more than all of that to live an obedient, holy, God-honoring life in this world?
He has given to you everything. So what is it that limits you? It is certainly not God's supply. What is it that limits us? It's no lack in what He has given to us. All of this has been granted to us through a true knowledge of Christ. Verse 3: He “has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the full knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence.”
This knowing, this knowledge that Peter is talking about in verse 3, is salvation knowledge. It's not some special, mystical insight that's only available to a few; that's not what he's describing. He’s not talking about a private, personal revelation, some vision. He's talking about the kind of knowing, the intimate, personal knowledge, that God gives to us of His Son that brings us face-to-face with our own sinfulness and makes us to realize that Christ is precious in what He has done and brings us into a relationship with Him. It is through that knowledge, knowing Christ in a saving way, that God has granted to us everything that pertains to life and godliness.
It's the kind of knowing described by Jesus Himself in John 17:3 when He said, “This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.” First John 5:20 says, “We know that the Son of God has come, and has given us understanding so that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life.” To know God is to have life in Christ.
So the knowing that Peter is describing here is a knowing of salvation. It is the knowing that brings eternal life. Knowledge is a key theme in the book of 2 Peter. The words know, known, or knowing appear seventeen times in these three chapters. Seventeen times. Peter is talking about a knowledge that begins at the moment of salvation when God opens your eyes and you reach out to lay hold of Christ by that gift of faith, which He grants. And then it is a knowledge that continues through the rest of your Christian life.
Peter's point here, by the way, is not that we have a comprehensive knowledge of Christ. It's not a comprehensive knowledge; it is a sufficient knowledge. Let me illustrate the difference. Do we know everything there is to know about Jesus Christ? We don't. I don't know how tall He was. I don't know how much He weighed. I don't know how much He could bench-press when He was twenty-five years old. I don't know His favorite fruit. I don't know what He had for lunch on May 18 of the year AD 27. I don't have a complete and comprehensive knowledge of Jesus Christ, but I have sufficient knowledge of Him revealed in Scripture so that I may live an obedient, holy, and God-honoring life in this world.
He has given to me everything I need to know. He hasn't revealed to us everything that we can know. What we have in our salvation knowledge is enough to obey all that God commands us. It is enough to make every decision. It is enough to grow in the grace and knowledge of Christ. It is enough to be pleasing to God in every respect. It is enough to live an obedient, holy, God-honoring life in this world.
He's given to us everything that we need. The lack is not with His provision. The lack is not with His grace. The lack is with us. All that has been given to us and granted to us has been given to us by the same power that hung the stars in space. That power dwells and is at work in you. Everything we need to live an obedient, holy, God-honoring life in this world—that is how His power has given us everything we need for holiness.