Did Peter Question the Salvation of Struggling Christians?

Confirming Calling and Election in 2 Peter

Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election, for if you practice these qualities, you will never fall.". Practice the qualities of confirming your election means you're never going to fall.

My guess is fall away from the faith. So we need to be constantly proving that we are saved. And if we don't, then we could fall away. No, that is so contrary to the entire book. He gave us everything, but what are you going to do with it?

Because you might not do with it what you're supposed to do with it.

That's right.

You might not confirm yourself in.

Faith as Spending What God Has Given

So this is in verse five. For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith. A better way of saying this is in ancient Rome, one would fund like they would see a play and they would want the city to see the play.

And so you would have one who would fund the actors and fund all the costumes. It's so it's taking from one's wealth saying, I want everyone to experience what I experienced. So I'm going to fund it. This is the same word.

It means to fund it. It means to take everything's been given to you. His divine power has granted to you all things. Now he says, spend it. Go spend it out.

Yeah.

Go.

And this is what is he described?

He talks about being a fruit and he talks about being effective.

That's right. We have received Christ. And now he says, now let others be affected by what you have received. This is important. Spending your faith on people. Steadfastness, godliness, brotherly affection, love.

These are all horizontal, Justin. These are all coming out of us towards the benefit of others. And he says this in verse eight, for if these qualities are yours and increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Well, the knowledge of the Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, that's what we're about. We want people to know Jesus. According to Peter, people will know Jesus by the way in which we love them. And we show our affection towards them.

It draws them in. So no one is ever saved by them, but they are effectively receiving the benefits of Christ by our good works.

For sure.

Weak Believers, False Teachers, and the Need to Remember the Gospel

Now, whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he's blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins. We have those who are effective. Then you have a second category. You have people who are struggling.

They're blind. They got swayed by Satan. He's like, look, y 'all forgot the gospel. You need to go back and remember where you came from. Now, he's writing this letter because he's worried about the third category of people.

But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destructions.

Well, how will we know who these people are? And many will follow their sensuality. And because of them, the way of truth will be blast themed. And in their greed, they will exploit you with false words.

Their condemnation from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep. There's a third category. Peter is worried that the congregation doesn't know how to identify these people. It's not that they're struggling.

They are openly teaching heresy. They are teaching one can be of Christ and live sensually, openly, and actually celebrate it as if it's an okay way of acting.

It's a 1 Corinthians 5 thing where Paul in that context is rebuking the church in Corinth for the same, not identical, it's not a false teacher issue, but it is their posture towards sin where there is a man who is doing something that even pagans know is just absolutely heinous and absurd.

Yet you are arrogant, meaning what? You're thinking that this is an appropriate expression of Christian freedom or something. When in reality, you should be grieved by this and you should put the man out for his own sake that he might be restored.

Similar kind of idea in terms of this kind of posture towards licentiousness and sin and debauchery. It's like, no, you think this is good and you are championing this all while claiming Christ and that ought not be.

You've got these three categories of people that he's gonna be dealing with. He's got those who are faithfully obeying, they're being effective in the church, right? They're being effective in the church.

Then you have those who are blind. They've allowed Satan and some of them, some of these false teachers have swayed them.

Sure, and these are weak and struggling people.

That's right.

Peter does not question their salvation. He says, you just forgot what happened to you.

You need to be reminded of the good news.

That's right. So you need to be reminded you were cleansed from that and now you have a new life waiting for you. And then he's, the third category, he's like, you're gonna, you've got these people who are claiming they're of you, but their words.

So like, James says the same thing, right? James is talking about justification of our faith. It's one thing to say you're a Christian, but then if your words and your actions deny Jesus, it's like, that's a problem.

I mean, that's a legitimate problem. Not a struggling Christian.

Assurance, Good Works, and the Ground of Peace with God

In no way, shape or form do I think that what Peter is saying and making our calling and election sure, it's like, well, you need to do something in order to have assurance. You need to do things adequately enough to know that you're safe.

What can our good works do? Well, I mean, they can absolutely bless our neighbor. They can build up our brothers and sisters. They can adorn our profession of faith and they can bolster our assurance.

That's all true.

So we're not saying that what we do can't bolster our assurance or can't do these things, but the ground of our assurance to know that we have peace with God, to know that we have hope eternally, to know that we're safe in the presence of the Lord could never be built upon or contingent upon what we do.

I don't think that's what Peter is saying at all.

It's not in the context.

No, at all.

We need to reclaim that phrase from Peter. His divine power, guys, that's what empowers us to be saved and obey. His divine power, okay?

That's where we always rest.

But there is a contrast. Like the way the divine power affects us, we do live different from the world. And Peter wants us to see that.

Yeah, that's true.

And even though God has given us everything that we need, there are going to be times when our lives are up and down and that doesn't mean that he's unfaithful and that he won't deliver on all his promises.

It means we forgot. He didn't forget. We forgot.

He didn't forget.