March 20, 2002-May 29, 2002
Tod Kennedy

2 Peter 1.3 “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.”

Ως πάντα ημιν της θείας δυνάμεως αυτου τὰ πρὸς ζωὴν καὶ ευσέβειαν δεδωρημένης διὰ της επιγνώσεως του καλέσαντος ημας ιδία δόξη καὶ αρετη,

2 Peter 2.3 Principle: Jesus, by his omnipotence has graciously granted each believer every spiritual blessing and resource so that each may possess and live the new creation kind of life, and so that each may behave—inwardly and outwardly—in the way that reflects who we now are in Christ. Life and godliness become apparent through a thorough and agreed to knowledge of our Heavenly Father and of Jesus our Lord.

1. His divine power. της θείας δυνάμεως αυτου

a) His refers to Jesus, the nearest antecedent. The also makes more sense because “him who called us” appears to be a different person that “his” of “divine power.”

b) Genitive singular with article and possessive genitive pronoun. Jesus (1.2) is the antecedent.

c) Divine θείoς means pertaining to or having the nature of God. Used in 2 Peter 1.3, 4 and Acts 17.29. God’s omnipotence is one of Jesus attributes. This kind of power has done something for us.

2. Has granted δεδωρημένης pf midd participle, gentive absolute. Gentive subject is “his divine power.”

a) Granted δωρέομαι. To give, present, bestow something on someone.

b) The genitive absolute structure 1] is an anarthrous participle in the genitive that 2] may have a genitive noun or pronoun as the subject and 3] usually the construction is at the front of the sentence case.

c) The genitive absolute semantics or usage 1] non connected with the rest of the sentence; its subject is not connected with the subject of the main clause 2] the participle is adverbial (circumstantial) or at least dependent-verbal 3] the participle is normally (90%) temporal, though all uses of the circumstantial participle can be used.

d) The genitive absolute brings in another subject and is used for emphasis or variety to catch the point. Here, God’s (Jesus) divine power or omnipotence is brought to the front of the thought.

e) The perfect is consummative for the completed nature of the action.

f) God has taken the initiative and all the action and bestowed upon us that which we need to live and that which we cannot gain for ourselves. We are unable to live the Christian life without God acting on our behalf. God did something for us that only deity can do. It required his divine power.

3. Everything pertaining to life and godliness τὰ πρὸς ζωὴν καὶ ευσέβειαν

a) We have the preposition pros plus the accusative case of life and godliness. This usage can mean 1] purpose= for, for the purpose of, 2] spacial=toward, 3] time=for, toward (duration), 4] result=so that, with the result that, 5] opposition=against, 6] association=with, in company with. The usage here is purpose.

b) God granted everything for the purpose of life and godliness. He had our Christian walk in mind.

c) General view of everything: 1] position in Christ 2] Holy Spirit indwelling believes 3] word of God 4] his divine intercession.

d) Specific view of everything: Spiritual blessings (Ephesians 1.3).

e) Life is ζωη zoe . The is 1] life as contrasted from death 2] God’s supernatural kind of life which believers enjoy now and will also have in the future. Life is the accusative object of the preposition. It refers to life in Christ. The new creation or new specie kind of life of 2 Corinthians 5.17 and Ephesians 2.10. It does not just mean “get eternal life.” It means the eternal kind of life that is in Christ. John 10.10 is the kind of life.

f) Each believer is a new spiritual specie in Christ with a 1] new relationship with God through Christ, 2] a new capacity for spiritual life and growth and service, 3] a new kind of life, 4] a new means of living, and 5] a new hope (2 Corinthians 5.17).

g) Godliness is ευσέβεια eusebeia in the feminine singular accusative. It is the second object of the preposition. The basic meaning is piety, godliness, religion. NT Greek Based on Semantic Domains= the “appropriate beliefs and devout practice of obligations relating to supernatural persons and powers - ‘religion, piety,” or how one acts toward God.

4. Summary of life and godliness

a) God has supernaturally created every believer to be a new creation in Christ (2 Corinthians 5.17; Ephesians 2.10).

b) It greatly helps believers to know who we are in Christ, what we have because of who we are in Christ, and our privileges and opportunities because of who we are and what we have in Christ.

c) Godliness is a summary word for the normal inner and outer behavior of the new in Christ person (2 Peter 1.3).

d) How we think and how we live does matter.

e) The Bible instructs us and the Holy Spirit empowers us to behave like who we are in Christ.

5. through the true knowledge of Him διὰ της επιγνώσεως

a) The preposition dia with the genitive stresses

b) Knowledge επιγνώσi~ epignosis Knowledge (noun, epignosis 1.2, 3, 8; 2.20). Epignosis is knowledge that you are in familiar with. It is knowledge with which you are in agreement and sympathy. You take it into yourself and you are at home with it. This knowledge is accurate and real to you and is part of the framework of your life. You will use this knowledge because it is valuable and familiar. It means more to you than intellectual data. This knowledge teaches, guides, protects, and encourages you. Gaining epignosis knowledge is important and results in blessing.

c) Him refers to God the Father.

d) We come to know him better and so come to live out our life and godliness.

5. Who called us by His own glory and excellence. ιδία δόξη καὶ αρετη

a) Who called us? The Father or the Son or the Spirit? Here refers to the Father.

b) Glory and excellence refers to the character of God, the nature and attributes of God. He is behind and in control of the supernatural kind of life that he has given us.

c) Glory is doxa and this refers to God’s character and especially his holiness and rightousness (Romans 6.23).

d) Virtue is αρετη, moral excellence or virtue. Virtue is the quality or practice of moral excellence or righteousness or any admirable quality, feature, or trait (Collins Electronic Dictionary).

e) His own glory and excellence brings out God’s perfect character and believers are the beneficiaries of his perfect character.

f) See the Doctrine of Called.

2 Peter 1.4

2 Peter 1.4 For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, in order that by them you might become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust.

⁴δι ων τὰ τίμια καὶ μέγιστα ημιν επαγγέλματα δεδώρηται, ίνα διὰ τούτων γένησθε θείας κοινωνοὶ φύσεως αποφυγόντες της εν τω κόσμω εν επιθυμία φθορας.

2 Peter 1.4 Principle: God the Father, based upon his character and from his unlimited resources, freely granted to believers his own sure promises with the result that believers may take on the divine nature, which is the “in Christ” person or “Christ formed you,” and may also separate out of the world’s corruption.

1. For by these. δι ων τα

a) The question that must be answered is the antecedent. Three choices are “us,” “all things,” and glory and excellence.”

b) Prepositional phrase of dia with the genitive plural of the relative pronoun—can be any gender.

c) The sense of “through us” is unclear. The sense of “through all things” he has granted to us…” is understandable but does not add a lot to the meaning.

d) The sense of “his glory and excellence makes the most sense and adds to the argument.

e) Therefore, the antecedent of “by these things” is “glory and excellence.”

2. He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises.

a) He refers to God the Father. “He” goes with “who called us” and “his glory and excellence.”

b) The verb is the perfect middle indicative, first singular. He himself has granted to us. The word means to give, present, bestow and has the idea of from one person to another (Mark 15.45 and 2 Peter 1.3 and 4). Mark 15:45 “And when he learned it of the centurion, he granted the corpse to Joseph.”

c) The perfect has the idea of completion and presents results.

d) τὰ τίμια καὶ μέγιστα ημιν επαγγέλματα. Precious and of value (neuter plural accusative adjective), and magnificent of size, degree, and rank (neuter plural accusative superlative adjective).

e) Promise epanggelma promise, announcement, the content of what is promised. Related to the verb emaggelomai to announce with certainty.”

f) Promises refer to that specific doctrine which believers may depend upon.

g) Promises are directed to “life and godliness.”

h) Here and only 2 Peter 3:13, “But according to His promise we are looking for new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells.

i) Promises refer to the Word of God, and in particular the announcements and promises—promises about eternal life, coming of the Lord, new heavens and new earth, millennial kingdom, Christian life promises, and others.

j) God keeps his promises, his word. Titus 1:2 “in the hope of eternal life, which God, who cannot lie, promised long ages ago.” He keeps them because of who he is. We experience these promises when we believe them, but he still keeps them even when we do not believe them.

3. In order that by them you might become partakers of the divine nature. ίνα διὰ τούτων γένησθε θείας κοινωνοὶ φύσεως

a) “Them” refer to the promises—the doctrines of the word of God that believers use.

b) The promises are the resources that we use to grow spiritually and reach maturity—that is partake of God’s nature, the new creation person.

c) The verb is the aorist middle subjunctive of ginomai. Verb means to become something. Here it indicates a change, not a state of being. The action does not happen all at once. As believers grow into who they are in Christ, they become partakers of the divine nature.

d) To become a partaker of the divine nature has two levels. 1] the position in Christ, new creations in Christ. 2] the experience of growing to the place where we gain or partake of this godliness or Christ character=God’s kind of life in us daily.

e) Koinwnoi is the word for 1. One who takes part with someone or in something 2. One who permits someone else to share in something.

f) “Partakers” is followed by the genitive of thing—“the divine nature.” Examples are 1 Peter 5.1 and 2 Corinthians 1.7.

g) 1 Peter 5:1 Therefore, I exhort the elders among you, as your fellow elder and witness of the sufferings of Christ, and a partaker also of the glory that is to be revealed,
2 Corinthians 1:7 and our hope for you is firmly grounded, knowing that as you are sharers of our sufferings, so also you are sharers of our comfort.

4. Divine nature.

a) Nature is the “the fundamental qualities of a person or thing; identity or essential character. “Collins English Dictionary, electronic ed. (Glasgow: HarperCollins, 2000).

b) φύσις, εως f: the nature of something as the result of its natural development or condition - ‘nature.’ τοις φύσει μὴ ουσιν θεοις ‘beings who by nature are not gods’ Galatians 4.8; θείας κοινωνοὶ φύσεως ‘sharers in the divine nature’ 2 Peter 1.4.For languages in which there is no ready equivalent to the lexical term ‘nature,’ it may be possible to render the expression in Galatians 4.8 as ‘beings who are really not gods,’ and in 2 Peter 1.4 one may translate ‘to share in what God is like’ or ‘to be like God in certain ways.’ (J. P. Louw, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament: Based on Semantic Domains, electronic edition of the 2nd ed. (New York: United Bible societies, 1989; Published in electronic form by Logos Research Systems, 1996). Page 584.)

c) Natural endowment or condition, natural characteristics or disposition (BGAD, 869).

d) Divine refers to pertaining to have the nature of God, divine (Greek English Semantic. 139). Godhead and that which belongs to it (BGAD 353).

e) Here it refers to the new creation or new man in Christ.

f) Divine nature has two levels: 1] the position in Christ, new creations in Christ. 2] The experience of growing to the place where we gain or partake of this godliness or Christ character=God’s kind of life in us daily. The second level is the use here.

g) The meaning is that by his own essence or attributes—his character—God the Father has granted believers his promises and these promises for the purpose that we might, in real life and real time, gain and partake of the new nature—God’s kind of nature, eternal like nature, the new creation nature.

5. Having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust.

a) The verb “having escaped” is the aorist active participle masculine plural nominative of apofeugw.

b) The only other NT uses are in 2 Peter 2.18, 20. “For speaking out arrogant words of vanity they entice by fleshly desires, by sensuality, those who barely escape from the ones who live in error, [20] For if after they have escaped the defilements of the world by the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and are overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first.”

c) The usage is attendant circumstance. Attendant circumstance makes the best sense of the passage. This usage of the participle is in some sense coordinate with the finite verb “may become.” The subjunctive mood of the verb also becomes the mood of the participle. The verb means to escape from someone or something.

d) The main verbs in the verse are 1] he has granted, pf midd ind. And 2] you might become, aorist middle subjunctive. This participle is attendant to “you might become.”

e) The aorist participle with an aorist main verb more often indicates contemporaneous action and sometimes it indicates antecedent action. So, having escaped the corruption either happened before we partake of the divine nature or at the time we take on the divine nature. The Bible stresses that our condition or position must occur before or at the same time our experience changes and that we do not gain the divine nature by changing our moral behavior. God does the supernatural change inside of us.

f) The context seems to require contemporaneous action. As believers partake of the divine nature they also escape the corruption that lust (the action of the sinful nature) causes. This is the story of Romans 6, 7, and 8.

g) *If this refers to antecedent action, the meaning of the passage changes: it then refers to when one becomes a believer he escapes the corruption of the world because his old man was crucified with Christ and the sinful nature has no one to control. This is the story of Romans 6.

6. Summary of the 2 Peter 1.3-4:

a) Jesus as God, savior, and head of the church has granted to each believer every resource (spiritual blessings) so that all may possess and pursue life and godliness: enjoy God’s kind of life and behave exactly like who they are in Christ.

b) In general, the path to understand and utilize these resources is through a genuine knowledge of God the Father—know him, his word, and his will in one’s life.

c) In specifics, the Father has also granted to believers his promises—his announced truth for time and the future.

d) A purpose of his promises for us—his announced truth—is so that we may take on the divine nature and at the same time escape the life promoted by the sinful nature.

e) In short, God has freely given to each of us that which we need to enjoy his kind of life and behave like who we are in Christ. Furthermore, these resources—specifically the Father’s announced truth are just what we need to grow spiritually and take on the character of Christ and at the same time to escape the control by the sinful nature and Adam man.