Chapter 1: What is the assurance of our salvation according to R.C. Sproul?
The one who saves us is our God, and the one who is our God is our Savior, which means, by way of application, if God saves you, you are saved indeed. What a glorious truth that is. If God saved you, you were saved indeed. Hi, I'm Nathan W. Bingham, and welcome to this Sunday edition of Renewing Your Mind. Has anyone ever challenged you when you've said that Jesus is divine?
Perhaps one of the cults, or simply a non-Christian who doesn't understand the doctrine of the Trinity? Well, as we start a short series in 2 Peter, today R.C. Sproul will consider one of the clearest New Testament texts that attributes deity to Christ.
Before we hear today's sermon, if you'd like to study both 1 and 2 Peter, we'll send you Dr. Sproul's hardcover commentary to thank you for your donation in support of Renewing Your Mind at renewingyourmind.org. Don't skip over these shorter epistles and instead study them in depth when you request today's resource offer.
Well, if you have your Bible, it's time to open it to 2 Peter because here's Dr. Sproul. Simon Peter, a bondservant and apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who have obtained like precious faith with us by the righteousness of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ, grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord,
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, 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.
As the apostle Paul frequently identified himself in his letters, so Peter identifies himself here with a twin appellation, namely that he is Peter, a bondservant and apostle, of Jesus Christ. The lowest possible layer or stratification of society would be that of a slave. And in the Christian community, the most elevated office, save for the office of Jesus Himself, is the office of apostle.
because to the apostles were given by Jesus His own authority to such a degree that He announced that those who receive you receive Me. Those who do not receive you do not receive Me. So here, Peter is claiming in one part of this phrase, the highest authority that anyone could claim in the early church, that of being an apostle.
But like the apostle Paul, at the same time, he identifies himself as a slave. He is at once, in the same time, the highest level of and the lowest level of Christian society. And the word here that Peter uses, the same one that Paul uses in Romans, for example, is the word doulos, a slave who has been purchased.
And in fact, you'll see the close connection in the Scriptures between the word doulos and the word kurios. A kurios is a lord or a master, and one cannot be a kurios in the sense of being a master unless he had slaves that were part of his possession. And to carry the metaphor even further, the Apostle Paul tells us, we are not our own. We've been bought with a price.
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Chapter 2: How does R.C. Sproul define saving faith?
The supreme irony is that Jesus comes to set us free from slavery, and He tells us, if the Son sets you free, then you are free indeed. But those who are delivered from the slavery of sin take on a new kind of slavery. being slaves to Christ. And again, the irony is you can't be free unless you're a slave.
And if you think you are free outside of bondage to Christ, your freedom is so much slavery. We have to lose our lives to find them. We have to give them away to get them back. But he goes on to say here, to those who have obtained like precious faith with us by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ. Now that second part of verse 1 is worthy of the writing of at least 10 books.
because there's so much packed into this. Listen again to what Peter says to the very beginning. He's addressing this epistle to those, that is, people who's identified, who have obtained, or more specifically, received the same kind of faith that we all have by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ.
So at the beginning, he talks about addressing this epistle to people who are believers such as himself. But he doesn't just say, I'm addressing this to fellow believers. But he's saying, I'm addressing this letter to all of you who just like we have received faith. But notice what adjective he uses to describe that faith that we have received. It's a precious faith.
We know that that which is called precious is that which has an exceedingly high value. we understand the difference between rocks and gems. Gems we call precious stones because they're so much more valuable than gravel. And when Peter talks about having received
The same faith that all the saints have received from the hand of God, he describes that faith by which we are saved as a precious faith. Is there any possession that you have more precious than that faith which links you to Christ and delivers to you his entire inheritance? That precious faith that is called the pearl of great price.
That the wise person would divest themselves of all that they had in order to possess that precious reality. And so Peter says, I'm writing this letter to those of you who, like us, have received this precious faith. by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ.
There's a little awkwardness here in the way in which this second sentence is structured that we've obtained this precious faith by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ. When Paul speaks of our justification by faith alone and when he speaks about the righteousness of God in that context,
You'll recall, those of you who studied through Romans with us, that that righteousness of God by which we are justified is not that righteousness by which God Himself is righteous, His own internal righteousness, but rather the righteousness that He gives as a gift to all who believe.
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Chapter 3: What does it mean to be a bondservant of Christ?
It's an easy way to dig into these letters of Peter and grow in your understanding of God's Word. So if you'd like a copy, we'll send you the hardcover commentary to thank you for your gift in support of this daily outreach. Simply make your donation at renewingyourmind.org or by using the link in the podcast show notes and we'll send a copy your way.
And if you live outside of the US and Canada, the ebook edition is available for you at renewingyourmind.org slash global. Thank you for making Renewing Your Mind possible. We truly couldn't produce this podcast 365 days a year without your generosity. Before we close, I do hope that I'll have the opportunity to greet you next month at Ligonier's National Conference in Orlando.
Thousands of Christians will gather for three days of teaching on the theme, Crucial Questions. It's a highlight of the year for the staff of Ligonier, not just because of the guest speakers that join us and all the teaching, but because we get to see you face to face. Please, if you haven't already, consider joining us. You can learn more and register at Ligonier.org slash 2026.
As believers, Peter will go on to remind us that we have been granted precious and very great promises. And that's what Dr. Sproul will explore next Sunday here on Renewing Your Mind. ¶¶