Confidence in God’s gift of salvation and perseverance in the Christian faith (2 Peter 1:1-10)

Today I would like to exposit from scripture the equality of our salvation, the experiential growth of our Christian faith, the adequacy of Christ for our salvation, the security of our salvation, and the assurance of our salvation.

Salvation is an equal gift from God by faith for all believers

Firstly, the apostle reminds the church that salvation is by grace alone and through faith alone. It is not granted by personal effort or some extra biblical mystical experience. Salvation belongs to those who believe the biblical testimony about Jesus Christ and obey his gospel of grace. The word precious reminds all Christians that there are no special ranks of elitism in Christendom. We were all sinners bought by the priceless shed blood of Christ (1 Peter 1:9) who died for us while we were enemies of God. (Romans 5:8) are all equally endowed by a priceless saving faith despite our racial, gender, spiritual, socio economic, educational, and personal conscience distinctive.

The grace and peace we experience as Christians is directly correlated to the knowledge we posses about our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Elsewhere the apostle Peter reminds the church to desire the pure word of God as a baby craves milk. We are also told that pressing onwards towards maturity (2 Peter 3:18) in our thinking is something that Christians ought to be concerned about. (Verse 5-9)

Jesus is perfectly adequate for a believer’s sufficiency and perseverance. (Philippians 1:6, Romans 8:31-39, 2 Peter 1:3)

We do not need additional grace from any other source than Jesus Christ to walk in perfect, reverent, loyal obedience to God our Father. At the point of conversion; a new believer is placed into the eternal commonwealth of God’s forever family and all the spiritual blessings and priveldges of God become available to that new divine creation. (John 1:12)

Security of salvation is achieved by the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 1:14) but our personal assurance of salvation is experiential when we pursue the Christian faith in its fullness.

Verses 5-9 are a call for perseverance in the faith. Apostle Peter charges us who name the name of Christ as lord and savior to observe these things. Assurance is different from security in that security is doctrinal and is based on God’s power to fulfill his plan of election. (Romans 8:30) Assurance on the other hand is based on our own perception that we are walking in obedience to God and thus reaping the experiential blessing of assurance of our salvation. (verse 10)