1:1 Unlike 1 Peter, there is almost no chance that 2 Peter was actually written by the apostle Peter. The earliest mention of 2 Peter is by the noted Christian theologian Origen, who was active in the first half of the third century and who judged Peter’s authorship as “doubtful.” (The Interpreter’s Bible, vol.12, p.163.) The acceptance of 2 Peter as part of the New Testament canon was primarily based not on its supposed apostolic authorship, but on its wide usage in many churches, and its lack of any heterodox theological positions. “Differences in style from 1 Peter create insuperable difficulties for the view that the two epistles have a common author. . . . The possibility of Petrine authorship is definitely eliminated by data which locate the second epistle in the second century.” (TIB, vol.12, p.164.) There are many similarities between 2 Peter and the book of Jude, causing scholars to believe that the author of 2 Peter relied heavily on Jude in composing his letter. We will not point out all the parallel passages between the two books, but some of the correspondences are set forth in Raymond E. Brown, An Introduction to the New Testament, pp. 761-765.
By referring to “our God and Savior Jesus Christ” the author identifies Jesus as God and exalts him to a position not seen in most other New Testament writings. 1 Timothy 1:1 refers to “God our Savior” and “Jesus Christ our hope” as two separate entities. Titus 1:4 also speaks of two separate beings, “God the Father” and “Jesus Christ our Savior.” However, later in Titus, that author also speaks of “our great God and Savior Jesus Christ.” (Titus 2:13) Note that referring to Jesus as God was almost unheard of in the gospels, and it is only in the gospel of John where the title is bestowed on him. E.g., John 20:28 where Thomas addresses the risen Jesus as “My Lord and my God,” and John 10:30 where Jesus himself proclaims that “I and the Father are one.”
Some translations, notably the KJV, render this verse in such a way as to refer to two separate beings – e.g., “the righteousness of God and our Savior Jesus Christ.” But there are sound grammatical reasons for translating the text as referring to a single being, as is done in the RSV, NASB, and NIV translations. See a discussion of the grammatical considerations bearing upon the translation in the TIB, vol.12, pp.169-170.
1:3-4 The “us” referred to in these verses is thought by most commentators to indicate the apostles – i.e., the twelve disciples, plus possibly Paul – rather than all Christians in general. The gist of the passage is that through the knowledge revealed to the apostles the reader (“you”) may escape from the corruption of the world. This recalls the words of Peter as reported in Acts 2:40 – “May you be saved from this crooked generation.”
The expected result of this knowledge is that the readers become “partakers of the divine nature.” It has been noted that this notion is rooted in Hellenistic philosophy, and contrasts sharply with the simple “salvation of your souls” which is given as the outcome of faith in 1 Peter 1:9. From the Jewish perspective, partaking of the divine nature seems to border on blasphemy, as it implies that humans may themselves become divine through this knowledge transmitted to them through the apostles. Note John 10:33, where the Jews seek to stone Jesus “for blasphemy, and because you, a man, make yourself out to be God.”
1:9 The transformational nature of the Christian’s baptism and symbolic rebirth would seem to be such a life-changing event that it would be impossible for any Christian to have “forgotten” that he or she has been cleansed from their old sins. Paul wrote that all Christians have been baptized into Christ’s death, and were thus dead to sin. (Romans 6:2-7) If Paul was right, there would seem to be no need to remind Christians to refrain from sinning. Yet not only here in 2 Peter, but in Paul’s letters as well, Christians are repeatedly admonished to curb their sinful impulses, which continue to exist, despite their cleansing. (e.g., 1 Corinthians 6:18; 1 Timothy 5:22)
1:16 Again, the author is referring to the apostles when he says “we.” The claim is that the teaching of the apostles is not based on any myth, but on personal experience of Jesus during his lifetime. This claim establishes the apostles as the ultimate authority of what Jesus taught.
1:17-18 The reference here is to the transfiguration of Jesus, as told in Matthew 17:1-8; Mark 9:2-8; and Luke 9:28-36. Again this underscores the author’s claim to be the apostle Peter, and an eyewitness to the events of Jesus’s life and ministry.
1:20 “No prophecy of scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation.” This would seem to rule out any attempt on the part of Christian apologists to explain away Biblical contradictions by putting their own symbolic interpretation on the offending passages. Some commentators try to weaken the force of this instruction by claiming that it applies only to the prophet who interprets the divine message. But even if this were true for the prophet, it still would be even more true of the average Christian who reads the prophet’s words. So either way, Christians are enjoined from interpreting scripture through their own imagination, and are instead obligated to take the words literally, as those of God who speaks to mankind through his prophets.
2:1-3 The author warns against following false teachers, who are sure to arise among the people and lure them into “destructive heresies.” The verb is in the future – there “will be” false teachers – but is almost certainly meant to describe the current situation as “prophesied” by Peter while he was still living. The false teachers who seek to mislead the people are no doubt the same “scoffers” (3:3-4) who pointed out that Jesus did not return as scheduled.
But how are these false teachers to be recognized, or distinguished from the true teachers? Perhaps they can be identified through their licentiousness, but Deuteronomy 18:22 gives a surer guide: “When a prophet speaks in the name of the LORD, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word which the LORD has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously, you need not be afraid of him.” (RSV) If we apply this standard to Jesus, then we find that he was a false prophet. He predicted that his second coming, accompanied by the darkening of the sun and moon, and the stars falling out of the sky, would occur before the generation he was speaking to passed away (Matthew 24:34; Mark 13:30) By the time 2 Peter had been written, that generation must have passed away, because in 3:4 we learn that “the fathers” (i.e., early church leaders) have all “fallen asleep,” which was a common Christian euphemism for “died.” And yet there is no record of the stars falling out of the sky, or Jesus arriving from heaven on clouds of glory as he predicted. So Jesus’s prediction about his second coming did not come true, and by the standard of Deuteronomy, his words were not from God and were “spoken presumptuously.”
2:4-7 These examples taken from the Old Testament (supplemented by several non-canonical sources) are intended to show that if God punished the ungodly in the past, he surely will do the same to the present false teachers who are leading the people astray. At the same time, the sparing of Noah and Lot also shows that God will spare the righteous. But Paul has written that “no one is righteous” (Romans 3:10), because all are under sin. So by Paul’s teaching, there is no hope for those to whom 2 Peter is addressed.
2:9 The Lord may know how to rescue the godly from their trials, but according to several passages, he has not done it yet. Christians are told that it is their special privilege to suffer as Christ suffered. See Romans 8:18; Philippians 1:29; 2 Timothy 2:3; and 1 Peter 2:20.
2:10 Those who “despise authority” are destined to be under punishment until the day of judgment. Would this include Jesus, who was himself a despiser of authority? Not only did he oppose the Jewish religious leaders, calling them hypocrites (Matthew 23:13-29), but he implicitly taught defiance of the emperor’s authority. With the famous “render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s” he established separate realms of authority for Caesar and God (Mark 12:17; Matthew 22:21). But he also taught that it is impossible to serve two masters, because a person will be “devoted to one and despise the other.” (Matthew 6:24; Luke 16:13) Thus, if Jesus was devoted to God (as he no doubt was) he must have despised Caesar – i.e., he despised authority, and was therefore unrighteous, according to the standard given here in 2 Peter.
2:12-19 This tirade against the false teachers borrows from the parallel passage in Jude 10-16. However, Jude (v. 14) supports his argument by quoting the non-canonical book of Enoch, while the author of 2 Peter omits this reference.
2:20-21 These verses are highly significant, because they teach that Christians have only one chance to escape the defilements of the world and obtain salvation. If they backslide after having previously accepted Christ, then they have become worse off than before, and it would have been better for them to have never become Christians in the first place. We can observe in daily life that many Christians who profess to be followers of Jesus Christ have become (or remained) entangled by the sinful attractions of the present age. But those who do so are lost, because the teaching here is that the act of salvation cannot be repeated. The same teaching is found in Hebrews 4:4-6 and 10:26-29.
2:22 A vivid and unflattering description of those who accept Jesus Christ, but then turn back again to the ways of the world.
3:1 If this is the second letter that “Peter” has written, then the previous one can only be 1 Peter, which was much more widely accepted in ancient times as authentic. The author obviously hopes that the legitimacy accorded to the earlier letter will also apply to this one. However, as previously noted, “differences in vocabulary, style, and content are too unmistakable for both letters to have been written by the same hand.” (The Interpreter’s Bible, vol.12, pp.196-197.)
3:3-4 Decades after Jesus had died, his followers had begun to grow concerned that he had still not returned. The author here tries to rebut the “scoffers” who mockingly ask where Jesus could be. The phrase “since the fathers fell asleep” tells us that the letter was written after the first generation of Christian leaders had died.
3:5-7 This response does not answer the objections of the scoffers, as it does not explain why Jesus has still not arrived. Verse 7 does predict that the earth will be destroyed by fire. Recall that after the flood, God set a rainbow in the sky as a token of his promise to never again destroy the world by a flood. But this promise provides little comfort, because apparently other forms of destruction are fair game.
3:8 The author tries to excuse Jesus’s absence by claiming that “one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.” But this still does not address the problem, because the promised return was not specified as a number of years or days. Jesus told his followers that the sun and moon would be darkened, and the stars would fall from the sky, and that he would arrive on clouds of glory to usher in the kingdom of God, and that this would occur before “this generation” that he was speaking to passed away. (Matthew 24:34; Mark 13:30) Obviously, from 2 Peter 3:4, we know that that early generation had passed away, and Jesus still had not returned, so his prediction has failed. It has nothing to do with how years and days are interpreted in the mind of God.
3:9 Here we have another attempted rebuttal, which also fails. The author argues that the delay in Christ’s coming is due to God’s mercy, as he wants to give sinners more time to repent. However, it has now been 2000 years since Jesus lived, and many more sinners have been born, most of whom will never become followers of Christ. (Note that Christianity is today a minority religion, as compared to the world’s entire population.) Thus, on balance, the delay has not been a grace period to allow more time for repentance, but an opportunity for more souls to be born who are destined to go to hell.
3:10 Although the day of the Lord will come “like a thief,” there is nothing here that says it will come soon. The author holds to the belief in the second coming, but gives no indication that he sees it as imminent.
It is claimed that when the day of the Lord finally comes, the heavens will pass away with a “great noise.” However, in space there is no air to transmit any sound. So it is unclear how this “great noise” could be produced or heard.
3:13 The promise of a new heaven and a new earth is derived from Isaiah 65:17 and 66:22. The theme is taken up also in Revelation 21:1.
3:14 There are other passages which also urge Christians to present themselves as “blameless” – e.g., Philippians 1:10; Colossians 1:22. But there is an opposing viewpoint to be found as well, i.e., that no one is blameless, because all are sinful and can only be saved through God’s mercy and grace, not by one’s own righteousness. See, for example, Romans 3:10; 3:23.
3:15-16 “Forbearance” hearkens back to 3:9, where God was said to be showing forbearance to sinners by not having Jesus return immediately as planned. Thus, the Christians should continue to believe in the second coming of Christ, whenever that may come. The author cites Paul's letters in support of this position, while acknowledging that Paul wrote many things which are hard to understand. Paul, who argued that Christians were no longer under the Mosaic law, was interpreted by some as approving of unrestricted licentiousness among Christians, based on such passages as Romans 6:14-15; 7:6; 1 Corinthians 6:12; Galatians 3:13. However, the author of 2 Peter declares that it is only the “ignorant and unstable” who accept such misinterpretations.