Salvation, including the faith to believe, is part of the gift of God. If we believe, it is because God has granted to us an allotment of faith.
So he gets all the glory. Welcome to Grace to You, featuring the Bible teaching of John MacArthur. I'm your host, Phil Johnson. In the classic comic strip Peanuts, the character Linus once said, It doesn't matter what you believe as long as you're sincere.
Well, those words articulate what most people to day believe. Especially about salvation. What you know isn't really important. It just matters that you're passionate about what you believe. The problem is, no amount of sincerity will save you if you believe the wrong thing.
So how can you know that your view of salvation is the right one and that you're not sincerely believing a myth? No question is more crucial, and has worse consequences if you get it wrong. To make sure you've got it right, stay here as John MacArthur continues his study, Myths About Salvation. And with today's lesson now, here's John. Peter wants to protect the believer.
He wants the church to be able to defend itself against this incessant onslaught. His concern is that people not fall prey or victim to the dangerous attack. of false teachers.
Now There are basically three defenses you need. And Peter's going to open these to us. Number one, know your salvation. Number two, know your scripture. Number three, know your sanctification.
Those are the three things you need to know. And he begins. Where he has to begin. The first line of defense. is our salvation.
Now He's going to tell us three things about our salvation. The source of our salvation. The scope of our salvation. and the certainty of our salvation.
Source, scope. Certainty. Let's look at source. Back to verse 1. Simon Peter, a bondservant and apostle of Jesus Christ, to those.
who have received a faith of the same kind as ours. By the righteousness of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ.
Now that identifies this indication of our salvation as to its source. Who have received who have received This means that our salvation is a what? It's a gift, isn't it? We received it. The word is a marvelous word.
Not a common word. Not a common word. This verb means to obtain by lot. You remember when they cast lots? It was a way in which God could providentially control earthly circumstances to crystal clearly reveal his will.
It came to mean given by an allotment. It clearly refers to something not attained by personal effort. not attained by personal skill. not attained by personal worthiness. But something that came purely from God.
as God controlled the giving of it. In fact, so is it designated in that sense that most all the lexicons of the Greek language. Say it means to obtain by divine will. God used the casting of lots as a way to reveal his will.
So it became synonymous. To receive by lot meant to receive by divine will.
So, Peter is writing to believers who have received their faith. Because God willed to give it to them. This is marvelous.
Now what does he mean by a faith? or faith. who have received faith. Does he mean the faith? Does he mean Christianity?
It's doctrines and its teaching. Or is it not objective but subjective? Is he talking about the power to believe?
Well, let me answer it for you. I believe that the best way to understand this is to understand it as subjective. That is to say, he is talking about the power to believe. There would be otherwise no reason to say who have received Faith of the same kind as ours. If he's talking about doctrine, Of course, there's only one body of doctrine.
So you wouldn't say this person got the same. Body of doctrine as this person got. There's only one. But if you mean subjective faith or the power to believe, to say that this person received from God the same power to believe as this person, now you've got something that is. Sensible.
No reason to say the two have the same value if you're talking about the objective faith, of which there is only one possibility. No, Peter is saying salvation is by faith. that faith comes from God as to its initiation. Saving faith, then, is from God.
Now listen carefully to this. Back in 1 Peter chapter 1, he said that we were chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father. Peter started at that first epistle. Talking about God's side, He elected us. Peter starts the second epistle talking about our side.
We believed. But again, it is a faith which is received from God. Faith is the capacity to believe. It is the capacity to trust God. And God gives it.
We're back to Ephesians 2, 8 and 9, aren't we? For by grace are you saved through what? faith and that not of Yourselves, it is the Gift of God. Salvation, including the faith to believe, is part of the gift of God. According to 2 Corinthians chapter 4.
Our minds are blinded so that the light of the glorious gospel cannot be believed. We are held captive in death according to Ephesians 2. We are servants. Of the prince of the power of the air, we are children of disobedience headed for eternal damnation. We are dead in trespasses and sin.
We are blind in the darkness and cannot see. And if we believe, it is because God has granted to us an allotment of faith.
So he gets all the glory. Listen to Ephesians 6.23. Peace be to the brethren, and love with faith from God the Father. and the Lord Jesus Christ. Love and faith and peace.
Come from God. Philippians 129. For to you it has been granted for Christ's sake not only to believe in him, but also to suffer for his sake. But it has been granted to you by God for Christ's sake to believe. You can't believe unless God gives you faith.
Now listen carefully to what I say. Human faith exists. You have the power to believe some things, right?
So do I. That's human faith. It has nothing to do with salvation. The faith that you have as a human being is not the kind of faith that redeems anybody. That faith that saves is a gift from God.
Listen to what Peter said again now in verse 1. Simon Peter, a bondservant and apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who have received. Face. First epistle to those who are chosen. Second epistle to those who have received faith.
The two go together were chosen by God, but not without faith. But that faith is a gift.
So God initiates faith. When the Holy Spirit awakens the dead soul in response to hearing the word of Christ.
So faith comes from God. Yet, all men are called on to believe, and those who don't believe are damned forever. What mystery? What mystery.
Now please follow Peter's thought. To those who have received faith of the same kind as ours. King James says, like Precious faith. Same kind. Isodomas.
Equal in value. It means. It's used in a political sense. It means equal in rank. Equal in position, equal in honor, equal in standing, equal in price in the economic usage.
Equally valuable, equally precious. equally honored, equally privileged.
So, what he's saying here is, we have all received the same precious, valuable, honored. Ranking Faith. The faith that we have is equally precious. The spiritual privileges that faith brings are equally precious. Listen to this, no first class Christians, no second class Christians.
We both have the same faith. That's what Galatians Is really saying, as Paul writes in Galatians 3:28, there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there's neither male nor female, for you're all one in Christ Jesus. You came in with an equally precious faith to equally precious privileges.
Now what does he mean here? That we have received faith of the same Value. The same kind. What does he mean? As ours.
What do you mean ours?
Well Some say he means, by the way, it's literally with us.
Some say he means the same faith as the apostles. And what he is saying is that Though the apostles are uniquely called by God, having seen the resurrected Christ and, of course, had those unique experiences with the Lord Jesus, and while they are blessed as eyewitnesses of that resurrection, and while they were given the gifts of signs and wonders, miraculous powers, while they were privileged recipients of divine revelation. They have no greater a faith, no more precious a saving faith. than simple, common, everyday, ordinary Christians. They each have the same Precious saving faith.
Well, I want to hurry up and say that's true. Absolutely true. That is absolutely true. But That's probably not what Peter means here. Because there are no apostles authoring this letter, just Peter.
Why would he say us? Down in verse 12, when he does get personal, First place, he just said, Simon Peter, a bondservant and apostle. When he says with us He could mean with collectively the apostles, even though they're not there, but that seems to be pressing it. If he had said, with me as an apostle, maybe we would have understood it that way. Down in verse 12, when he does refer to himself, he uses the singular pronoun, I, I, I.
My, my, my.
So he's not using us here in a collective sense to refer. to more than one apostle authoring this. You say, well, if it isn't. with the apostles then Who is he talking about here? More likely, he has in mind the Jewish-Gentile issue.
And what he is saying here is, you Gentiles, Scattered throughout the Gentile world as identified in 1 Peter 1:1. You have received Faith of the same value as the Jews, as ours as Jews.
Now, we can't be dogmatic about this. He could mean collectively the apostles. But in consistency with other things that Peter had taught and experienced, it seems best that he was remarking about this Jewish-Gentile issue. Go with me quickly for a moment back to Acts chapter 11. Let me show you why I would.
prefer this interpretation. In Acts 11, Actually, Peter is reporting here. About what the Lord did with the Gentiles. Peter had a unique ministry to the Gentiles, as you well know. In verse 15 of Acts 11, Peter reports that the Holy Spirit fell on the Gentiles just as he did on the Jews at Pentecost.
And then in verse 17 he says, If God therefore gave to them the same gift as he gave to us also after believing in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could stand in God's way? He is saying the Gentiles got the same gift of the Holy Spirit after their believing that we got after our believing. Therefore, they got the same believing. They received the same faith. Look at chapter 15.
Verse 8. Verse 6 says, The apostles and elders came together to look into this matter in the Jerusalem council. There was a lot of debate. Peter stood up and said, Brethren, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe. And God, who knows the heart, bore witness to them, giving them the Holy Spirit, just as He did to us.
And he made no distinction, watch this, between us and them, cleansing their hearts by what? By faith. Same faith.
Now, therefore, why do you put God to the test by placing upon the neck of the disciples a yoke which neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? But we believe that we are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus in the same way they also are. It seems to me that Peter is rather enamored with the sameness of the phenomena of salvation with regard to Jew and Gentile. And when you carry all of that kind of thinking into this epistle, he is saying. I'm writing to those, parentheses Gentiles, who have received a faith of the same precious value as we Jews have received.
First and second epistle written to scattered churches in the Gentile world. Made primarily up of Gentile believers, the tone is certainly wider than the Jews. The middle wall of partition is broken down, as Ephesians 2 says. Peter got a very graphic illustration of that in Acts 10 with Cornelius and the vision he had at his. Unique in cater.
With the supernatural? And so he was enamored with this like precious faith that belonged to Jew and Gentile. There is no Jew or Gentile. God has given us all the same saving faith. The source Of salvation, God.
He gave us the faith. And what was the means? By, look at verse 1: the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ. By the righteousness of our God and Savior. Jesus Christ.
This phrase also might have several emphases. Listen very carefully. Righteousness can mean justice. It can mean fairness. It can mean equity.
So, some commentators take it that what he is writing is this: that you, Gentiles, have received. The power to believe The same precious faith as we Jews. Because God is fair. and equitable and just. And so he gives the same to both.
That's one possible meaning. If we take that meaning. It is then saying that God is no respecter of persons, but has given us all fairly the same kind of precious faith to believe in Jesus Christ, whether we be Jew or Gentile, and therefore we are ushered into receiving the same Holy Spirit. We receive the same spiritual privileges because God is equitable. Nobody is more worthy than anybody else because nobody is worthy, period.
But on the other hand This marvelous word. righteousness. can also mean the very Rightness of God, the very justifying power that God possesses, enabling Him to redeem sinners. In other words, we have faith to believe and we are saved because God's righteousness is given us. It is the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ imputed to us.
It seems that that latter one is more consistent with New Testament teaching. That whenever you have salvation linked with the righteousness of God, it is not linked with His fairness or justice or equity as much as it is linked with His holiness. Purity. Righteousness in the sinless sense, which is imputed to us or granted to us. From God.
In Christ.
So we have faith. Only because God gives it. And we are saved only because he imputes to us righteousness. He grants us righteousness.
Now notice, please. It is It is not really the righteousness or the justness or the equity and the fairness of God the Father, but follow this thought. We are receiving the power to believe equally. And then salvation by the righteousness.
Now, watch this title, of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ. He's not talking about God the Father. He is calling Jesus Christ our God and Savior. Righteousness does originate with God. But it flows down to us Through Jesus Christ.
Galatians 3.8 Says God will justify the Gentiles by faith. Verse 9: Then those who are of faith are blessed with Abraham the believer. Verse 11 says, The righteous lives by faith. Again, you have righteousness and faith, righteousness and faith connected. Believing and being forgiven, being made just, made right with God.
This following phrase, this description of Jesus Christ, I think, favors the second. Interpretation. It is the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ that is given to us. By the way, the Greek construction has only one article before our God. of our God and Savior Jesus Christ, making it all refer to one person.
Here's how to understand that phrase. Very important. It is one person. Our God is Savior Jesus Christ. Our Savior Jesus Christ is God.
That's all bound up in that. All bound up. Our God and Savior, Jesus Christ. He is God. Any less consideration of him than that.
Is a denial. of his person. Listen to Romans 9:5 for some support. Christ According to the flesh, Who is over all God? Blessed forever.
Christ is God. Christ is God. Titus chapter 2 verse 13. Looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Christ Jesus. Who is appearing?
Our God and Savior, Christ Jesus. Hebrews 1.8. But of the Son, he says, Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever.
So it goes. Jesus is God. For in him all the fullness of deity dwells. in bodily form. Colossians Two nine.
Listen to this carefully. This is marvelous.
What Peter is doing is what he did at Pentecost. In Acts 2.21. He took the Old Testament name for God. And applied it to Jesus. This is marvelous.
You know what the Old Testament name for God was? Savior. And he applied it to Jesus. When he was born, He was to be called Jesus, for he shall what? Save his people.
from their sins. He was born. to be a savior. Matthew 1.21. Let me give you just a quick look at this.
Turn to Isaiah for a moment, just for maybe a minute. And I'll run by few scriptures to kind of enrich you. And then we'll Draw to a conclusion quickly. In Isaiah. 433.
Here Isaiah Gives this title to God. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your what? Savior. Verse 11. I, even I am the Lord, and there is no Savior.
Besides me? Isaiah 45. Fifteen. Truly, thou art a God who hides himself, O God of Israel, Savior. Verse 21.
Declare and set forth your case. Indeed, let them consult together. Who has announced this from of old? Who has long since declared it? Is it not I, the Lord?
And there is no other God besides me, a righteous God and a Savior. Isaiah. Sixty Verse 16, the end of the verse, then you will know that I, the Lord, am your Savior and your Redeemer. Your Savior. And Your Redeemer.
You see When Peter says, back to 2 Peter. That we have received from God the power to believe. an equally precious faith whether we are Jew or Gentile. And we are saved, therefore, by faith as the righteousness of God comes to us. It comes As the righteousness of Jesus Christ who is our God and Saviour.
He is really Using Titles for God to refer to God. Jesus Christ. The source of salvation then is God. He allots to us the faith to believe and provides with it. His own righteousness, the righteousness of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ.
Make no mistake, beloved, salvation is God's gift in every sense. Every sense. That is its source. You're listening to Grace to You, the Bible teaching ministry of John MacArthur. His current series is titled Myths About Salvation.
Well, keeping in mind what John said in the lesson about the certainty of salvation, I want to play a question that we received from a listener. It may be one that you and a lot of people can relate to.
So let's hear the question and then you'll hear how John answered it. Hi, Pastor John. My name is Katie. And my question is. How do I know that I've truly repented I Don't know if I'm fooling myself.
I know that Jesus. promised to forgive our sins. but I feel like such Okay. follow me because of my past history. And I know that if I repent and turn to Jesus, He is.
faithful to forgive our sins, but am I fooling myself that I have repented? Yeah. I just want to be so assured that I have truly repented. I can receive Jesus's. forgiveness.
And I thank you. No, Katie, I thank you. Look. Don't look backwards. to see if you repented.
Look. into your own heart. What are your desires? If you have repented, And you have been forgiven. You have been made a new creation.
You are not what you used to be. You have passed from Death to life. From darkness to light. From ignorance to truth. from foolishness to wisdom.
From the kingdom of Satan to the kingdom of God's dear Son. In other words, it isn't just whether or not you believed and were forgiven. You have become a completely new creation.
So don't look back. to discern the reality of your spiritual condition. Ask yourself questions about the present. Do I desire to do I desire to bring glory to him, Do I love the Word of God? Do I desire fellowship with believers?
Do I have a hunger to know the Lord better? Do I want to serve him? Is He the desire of my heart? Look, it's not perfection that you're looking for, it's direction. And if all of those things can be answered, I am.
strongly Desiring to bring honor to Christ, to know Christ, to serve Christ, that's all evidence that you're a new creature. That's right, and friend, if those desires that John was talking about are your desires and you want to grow more and more in your relationship with Christ, let me make a suggestion. Go to our website, gty.org, and download the Grace to You app. It's a great resource for feeding on the Word of God and growing in your knowledge of Christ. Go online today to get the app.
Just visit gty.org. The app gives you access to all 3,600 of John's sermons wherever you take your mobile device. And with the app you can also read our blog with articles to help strengthen your walk with Christ. Again, to download the Grace TU app, Just go to gty.org. And if you're already benefiting from the Grace to You app, or if this daily radio program has made a difference in your family, or if someone you know has come to Christ after hearing this broadcast, We would love to hear your story.
Just email your note to letters at gty.org. That's our email address, letters at gty.org. or you can send a physical letter to Grace2U Box4000. Panorama City, California, 91412. Also, when you get in touch, thanks for remembering that we are a listener-supported ministry.
To partner with us financially, call 800-55GRACE. or go online to gty.org. And now for the entire Grace to You staff, I'm Phil Johnson, encouraging you to be back tomorrow as John MacArthur helps you know what to say to people who claim that there are multiple ways to get to heaven. It's another 30 minutes of Unleashing God's Truth one verse at a time. on Grace to You.
