2 Peter 1:1 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

To them that have obtained Not by their own works, but by the free grace of God; like precious faith with us The apostles; the faith of those who have not seen being of the same nature, value, and virtue, equally precious, with that of those who saw our Lord in the flesh; εν, in, or through the righteousness of God, and our Saviour Jesus Christ That is, faith in, and received through, the mercy (in consistence with the justice) of God the Father, and in and through the obedience unto death of our Saviour Jesus Christ. This is according to the common translation. “But on what authority,” says Macknight, “our translators have rendered του θεου ημων και σωτηρος, of God and our Saviour, I know not.” The literal translation of the clause undoubtedly is, Faith in, or through, the righteousness, (namely, both active and passive,) of our God and Saviour, which is at once a principal object of saving faith, and that through which alone the justice of God is satisfied, and saving faith conferred upon us. Some, however, are of opinion that the relative our, in the first clause, though omitted in the second, is to be understood as repeated. The reading would then be, the righteousness of our God, and of our Saviour. But the propriety of this construction is justly questioned. Grace and peace See on 1 Peter 1:2; through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord Through the experimental, practical knowledge of the Father and of the Son, (who, as appears from the order of the original words, are both here intended,) even that knowledge which is communicated by the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, (see Matthew 11:27; Ephesians 1:17; 1 John 5:20,) and in which consisteth our eternal life, John 17:3, where see the note.