2 Peter 1:2Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Nothing is equal to peace. Therefore we pray and ask for an angel of peace, and everywhere in the churches we ask for peace, in prayers, petitions, and greetings. Once, twice, three times, and many times, the presider of the church gives it, saying, “Peace be to you.” Why? Because peace is the mother of all good things and the foundation of joy. Therefore Christ commanded the apostles, when entering a house, to say this first, as a sign of good things: “Whatever house you enter, first say, Peace to this house” (Lk 10:5). When peace is absent, everything is vain. Christ also said to the disciples: “My peace I give to you” (Jn 14:27). Peace prepares the way for love.

The connection is this: to you who, in the knowledge of God and of Christ Jesus our Lord, have received with us an equally precious faith according to the righteousness of our God, may grace and peace be multiplied.

The Apostle everywhere urges peace, but he speaks not of earthly peace, but of the peace attained through the knowledge of God. This alone is truly peace, for it guards us from stumbling and error before God. Therefore Christ bestowed it on us when He departed to the Father. “Peace be to you,” He proclaimed when He rose from the dead, cf. Jn 14:27.

As in the first epistle, the apostle desires the multiplication of grace and peace among Christians. He also indicates the means or conditions of this multiplication: the knowledge of God and of Christ.

Here what is meant is not only knowledge by the mind, γνῶσις, but also acknowledgment by the heart and abiding in faith and love (Jn 16:3; Eph 4:13-15).

Knowledge of Jesus Christ draws divine grace to us, and with it all the divine powers for life and piety. That is, it draws everything needed for a pious life, or for piety and blessedness (1 Pet 3:10).

Our calling to Christianity is accomplished by the glory, that is, for the glory, and virtue, in Russian, goodness, of the Son of God. The phrase is διὰ δόξης, though in some of the best manuscripts it is ἰδίᾳ δόξῃ.

This gives the thought that our calling is accomplished not by our powers, but by the Son of God's own glory and virtue, He who calls us.

Grace, and so forth: the apostle expresses his greeting and good wish for believers in the same way and with the same words as in the first epistle (2 Pet 1:2; see the note), with the addition of the expression in the knowledge of God and of Christ.

The word knowledge is stronger than simple knowing. It occurs several times in this epistle (2 Pet 1:3, 8; 2 Pet 2:20). It is especially frequent in the epistles of the holy apostle Paul, chiefly in Col 1:9-10; Col 2:2, 3, 10; Rom 1:28; Rom 3:20; Rom 10:3, and elsewhere.

Knowledge, with which the word knowing is often compared, means a deepened knowing more strongly permeated by love. It embraces its object not externally or superficially, but deeply and concentratedly.

In the inscription (2 Pet 1:1-2), Saint Peter calls himself “a servant and Apostle of Jesus Christ.” He also raises his readers to his own level. As those who have received the same “equally precious faith.” He greets them in this way: “Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Christ Jesus our Lord.” By this he seems to say that the more perfect and full the knowledge of God and Christ Jesus becomes in us. The more abundantly spiritual blessings are given to us.

The Apostle’s first wishes are for grace and peace, with which he also began the First Epistle, see 1 Pet 1:2. Here he especially desires grace and peace for the knowledge of God and Christ. This shows that there was something hindering the fullness and height of a right understanding of the teaching about Christ and God. What this hindrance consisted in, the Apostle defines later, pointing to various heresies and lawless teachings.