1 Peter 1:2-3, “May grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through the knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence…”
Short Thoughts:
Everything needful to live and grow as a Christian—now and for eternity—comes from an ever-deepening, affection-kindling knowledge of the glory and excellence of God in Son who dies and rises again.
Long Thoughts:
Notice the emphasis on knowledge. Grace and peace are multiplied to the believer in the knowledge of God and of Christ (consider the link to John 17:3), and all that is necessary for life and godliness (eternal life and Christ-likeness, justification and sanctification) is granted to us through the knowledge of the One who called us by His own glory and excellence (and, by calling us by it, He has also called us into it, to participate in His own glory). It is knowing God and His Christ (which, as I’ve argued regarding John 17:3, must ultimately be understood as knowing God in Christ and by the Spirit), it is in this knowledge that we receive and grow in the grace and peace of God and in this knowledge that we are equipped with every good thing necessary for justification and sanctification, to attain and enjoy eternal life and grow in our experience of it as we are more perfectly conformed to its heart, to Christ.
Now, this knowledge is not simply head knowledge. How do I know that? Two reasons, first, this knowledge—if it is real—is fruitful knowledge (1:8). It bears the fruit of a changed life and acts of love….it is a knowledge that sinks down into the heart and works its way out through the hands….if it does not, it is not the knowledge Peter is talking about.
Second, see that in v.4, the corruptions of the world are caused by sinful desires, by the longings and passions of the sin nature. Now see that the escape from these desires is worked by the knowledge of God’s glory and excellence in Christ. This is implicit in the chain of reasoning in 1:3-4, but it is explicit in 2:20 where Peter clearly says that one “escape[s] the defilements of the world (caused by sinful desire, 1:4 would remind us) by the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” In other words, the knowledge of God’s glory in Christ is the sort of knowledge that breaks the chains of sinful desire and sets us free….This is not cold, thin, intellectual assent….This is a whole-bodied knowledge, it is a knowledge that brings with it its own fitting passions…..It is like the knowledge of honey that comes by taste and so exposes the deficiency of processed candy, or the knowledge of beauty that comes by hearing a great symphony and so breaks the attraction of an advertising jingle, or the knowledge of emotional and physical and spiritual rapture that comes with marital intimacy that breaks the dark bonds of pornography or other sexual perversions….it is an affectional knowledge….And as we know the glory of God in Christ, as we know the excellence of our Lord—a knowledge ONLY granted as faith sees the crucified and risen Lord through the illumination of the Spirit—as we know God in Christ in this way, grace and peace are multiplied to us and we are set free from the corruptions of the world so that we might further pursue and be conformed to Him for whom our souls were made.
