Partakers - Through These
2 Peter 1:2 Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, 3 as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, 4 by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
Believers in Jesus are given the privilege of partaking in God’s divine nature. But this partaking in the divine nature is imparted to us through certain means.
His divine power has given us everything pertaining to life and godliness, but we realize the reality of possessing such things as we grow in our knowledge of Jesus, who called us by glory and virtue.
All these amazingly wonderful things are given to us by His divine power. The administrator of His divine power is the Holy Spirit. So the power of God at work in salvation, which is a supernatural work that brings us into His eternal life and causes us to come alive, although we were once spiritually dead, also imparted an ability to embrace godliness.
It is through this life and godliness that we receive freely when we come alive in Christ that we inherit the promises. All the promises of God are yes, and amen in Christ to the glory of God! It pleased God that we should inherit the promises through Christ. The promises belong to you and me in Christ, not by way of our own merit. Just as salvation is not by means of merit on our part, the promises are not ours according to merit.
The promises are very important too! The promises are what God uses to impart to us His divine nature in a very real and tangible sense. When you and I tap into a promise of God through faith in Christ, we experience in our time and space the working of God on our behalf, and it imparts to us a solid sense of belonging to Him and knowing He is working for us, in us and through us.
Being a partaker of the divine nature involves receiving and walking in the promises.
It is through the promises that we become partakers of His divine nature. You see, it was by believing one of the promises that you even were born again and rescued from death to life in Christ. Eternal life is one of the promises, and you benefitted from that promise when you came to Jesus in faith. If all Peter was talking about was the promise of eternal life in Christ, it would say we were made partakers of the divine nature through the promise instead of saying exceedingly great and precious promises. Making the application plural when it comes to promises means there’s more we have been given in Christ.
So the idea of being a partaker is not a one-time sense here. It is an ongoing idea being conveyed. I could be offered a cake, take one bite and then go away and say honestly, I partook of the cake, but by possessing the cake, I am given the privilege to take more than just one bite. I can continue to experience that cake beyond just that first bite.
That is the general idea of this communication in 2 Peter. We escaped the corruption that is in this world through lust when God supernaturally changed our hearts when we came to Christ. We were made the very righteousness of God in Christ and became alive spiritually. We were translated from the kingdom of darkness into His marvelous kingdom of light. He altered our desires and opened our eyes to greater things than what this world has to offer.
To continue experiencing Him the way He intends for us to do so, we need to be believing and receive the exceedingly great and precious promises that are offered to us in Christ. It is through these that we are made partakers of Him in an ongoing sense. I encourage you today to lay hold on the promises! Walk in a continual experience of Him in all His goodness!
