2 Peter 1:12

The passage opens with “Wherefore”, dió, a word that means “on which account” and draws a conclusion from what has gone before. What has gone before is the whole of 2 Peter 1:3–11: God’s power has given us all that belongs to life and godliness, he has given us great and precious promises, and we are to add to our faith one virtue after another. Because all of that is true, Peter will act on it. “These things”, toútōn, are those promises and virtues.

His resolve is put strongly. “Negligent” is ameléō, to be careless of something or to make light of it, and Peter says that this is the one thing he will refuse to be. “To put you in remembrance” is hypomimnḗskō, a quiet prompting of the memory, which recalls what is already held and adds no new doctrine. He will do it “always”, aeí, a word for something that goes on continually, so the reminding is a steady work and keeps going after the first telling.

Peter then pays his readers a real compliment. “Though ye know them” joins kaíper (“though”) to eídō, the common verb for seeing and so for knowing. They are also “established”, stērízō, which means to set fast, to fix or to confirm. These are grounded believers, most likely the Jewish and Gentile Christians scattered through Asia Minor to whom his first letter went (1 Peter 1:1).

People ask why Peter needs to remind those who already know and are established. He gives the reminder because a firm faith still needs tending. Memory fades, and a truth that is well known can lose its hold on us when it is seldom heard. Being established means having a sure foundation, and a foundation is kept sound by returning to it. There is also a danger ahead, since false teachers were on their way into these churches, and 2 Peter 2 is given to warning against them. A clear restating of the truth is the best guard against a twisted version of it.

The other apostles worked the same way. Paul told the Philippians, “To write the same things to you, to me indeed is not grievous, but for you it is safe” (Philippians 3:1). Jude wrote, “I will therefore put you in remembrance” (Jude 1:5). The letter to the Hebrews shows what happens when the first lessons slip: “For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God” (Hebrews 5:12). Peter has just told his readers to make their calling and election sure (2 Peter 1:10), and steady reminding is how he helps them do it. These verses also lead on to what follows, where he shows how certain the apostles’ message is, beginning with what he saw of Christ’s majesty with his own eyes (2 Peter 1:16).

Verse 13 begins with “Yea”, the small connecting word dé, which carries the thought forward. Peter thinks it “meet” to go on reminding them, and the word is díkaios, which means just or right. He counts this work a matter of what is right before God and part of his calling as an apostle.

He will do it “as long as I am in this tabernacle”. The word is skḗnōma, an encampment or a tent, and here it stands for the body as the dwelling of the soul. Greek readers knew tents from travelling life and from army camps, and Jewish readers would think at once of the tabernacle in the wilderness, the tent where God dwelt among his people before the temple was built. A tent is put up for a time and then taken down, and Peter sees his own body that way. Life here is short, which gives his work its urgency.

Paul uses the same picture at greater length: “For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens” (2 Corinthians 5:1–4). The tent is set against a lasting home. There is a link to the Lord himself as well, for the Word “was made flesh, and dwelt among us” (John 1:14), taking a human body and living in it among us to carry out God’s saving purpose.

While he is in the tent, Peter means “to stir you up”. The verb is diegeírō, to wake fully or to rouse. Believers can grow drowsy, even mature ones, and Peter wants them wide awake to what they have been taught. The means is “putting you in remembrance”, hypómnēsis, a reminder. He says the same of the whole letter later on, when he writes that he is stirring up their pure minds by way of remembrance (2 Peter 3:1).

Peter speaks of his death as something he knows. “Knowing” is again eídō, to see and so to know, and it is the language of a settled fact. “Shortly” is tachinós, soon or swift. Where the KJV has “I must put off”, the Greek has the noun apóthesis, a laying aside, with the plain verb estí, “is”, so that Peter says the laying aside of his tabernacle is soon. Apóthesis comes from apotíthēmi and pictures putting something off, as a person takes off a garment. Death, for Peter, is the laying down of the body, and he himself goes on.

He knows it “even as our Lord Jesus Christ hath shewed me”. “Even as” is kaí (“also, even”) with kathṓs (“just as”), and “shewed” is dēlóō, to make plain by words. The Lord had told him. After the resurrection Jesus said to Peter, “Verily, verily, I say unto thee, When thou wast young, thou girdedst thyself, and walkedst whither thou wouldest: but when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest not. This spake he, signifying by what death he should glorify God” (John 21:18–19). Peter had carried that word for many years, and now he knows the time has come. Tradition holds that he was put to death in Rome under the emperor Nero, around A.D. 64–68, probably by crucifixion.

Verse 15 opens with “Moreover”, dé and kaí together, adding one further resolve to the last. “I will endeavour” is spoudázō, to make haste, to be earnest, to give diligent effort. Peter will work at this with the time he has left. His aim is “that ye may be able”, where the verb is échō, to have: he wants them to have these things within reach.

“Decease” is éxodos, a going out or departure. It is the word the Greek Old Testament uses for Israel’s Exodus from Egypt, and it is the word used on the mount of transfiguration for the “decease” that Jesus was about to accomplish at Jerusalem (Luke 9:31). Peter was on that mountain, and he speaks of his own death with the same word. Death is a departure from this life and a journey onward under God’s ordering.

What he wants them to keep is “these things”, toútōn again, as in verse 12: the promises and power of God (2 Peter 1:3–4), the virtues to be added to faith (2 Peter 1:5–7), the sure word of prophecy (2 Peter 1:19–21), and the warnings about false teachers and scoffers in 2 Peter 2 and 2 Peter 3. “Always” here is hekástote, a different Greek word from the “always” of verse 12, and it speaks of every occasion. “Remembrance” is mnḗmē, memory or recollection, a holding of the truth in mind that shapes what a person believes and does.

Peter’s words have the weight of a last charge. Scripture records others like it, such as Jacob’s charge to his sons and David’s to Solomon, and among both Jews and Romans the final instruction of a respected leader carried great authority. In Peter’s day few people could read and nothing was printed, so teaching was kept alive by being repeated. When the apostles died, the churches would lose their living voices, and Peter is making provision for that day. His concern is for the truth about Christ, and his own name hardly enters into it.

God has always meant his truth to be handed on. Israel was to keep his words in the heart and teach them diligently to their children (Deuteronomy 6:6–7). Paul told Timothy to commit what he had heard to faithful men who would teach others also (2 Timothy 2:2), and Jude urges us to contend for “the faith which was once delivered unto the saints” (Jude 1:3).

Peter’s effort rests on a greater promise. Jesus commanded his apostles to teach the nations “to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:20), and he promised that the Holy Spirit would “bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you” (John 14:26) and would guide them into all truth (John 16:13–14). So the remembering Peter labours for is finally Christ’s own gift to his church, given through his Spirit and the inspired written word. This letter is part of the fruit of Peter’s effort, for we are reading his reminder long after his departure.

The passage also tells us something kind about ourselves. We forget, and God knows that we do, so he has given us shepherds and Scriptures that say the same good things again. Hearing a familiar truth once more is one of the ways he keeps us steady, and the Christ we are reminded of is “the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever” (Hebrews 13:8).

Peter shows us, too, how a believer may think about death. Our bodies are tents, our times are known to the Lord, and the day of our departure is in the hands of the one who has already made that journey and come back. That knowledge made Peter earnest with the days he had left. Until the day of the Lord comes with its new heavens and new earth (2 Peter 3:10–13), his last word to us is to “grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 3:18).