Resurrection in 2 Peter
(avg. read time: 3–5 mins.)
My major research interests in 2 Peter that I am covering this year are about its eschatology and popular claims of its composition. The latter will be addressed later this month. The former will be divided into two parts. The first part concerns what 2 Peter has to say in relation to resurrection. It is one of those books in the NT that features none of the standard resurrection terms. That is, the terms used for resurrection do not even appear with non-resurrection senses in 2 Peter. As such, we must look for implicit and indirect references.
The first sentence after the opening provides two connections to resurrection. First, Peter says that God’s divine power has granted the faithful everything pertaining to/for “life” and godliness. We have seen previously that God’s power is sometimes associated with resurrection (beyond the references to Paul in the links, see Matt 22:29 // Mark 12:24; Heb 7:16). What makes an implicit resurrection reference more likely here is the fact that God’s power pertains to life, being life that is salvific and linked with godliness. The effect of God’s power is to make alive, which obviously resonates with broader NT teaching on resurrection. The fact that it also effects godliness means that it is also sanctifying power, which as we have seen in many places elsewhere means conformity to the image of Jesus and thus becoming Godlike by extension.
This leads to the second connection to resurrection in this sentence with the reference to the faithful becoming “partakers of the divine nature” (1:4). This fits with the note about godliness in the previous sentence, but it also implies the fulfillment of human identity as the image- and likeness-bearers of God. Furthermore, in light of the earlier part of the sentence, it has the sense of partaking of the divine life, that is, of immortality through being conformed to the resurrected Jesus who communicates his eternal life to us. At the same time, the aspect of conformity to Jesus is made clear in the exhortation to apply the various virtues in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ (1:5–8). As Paul showed especially in Phil 3 (see here and here), to know Christ is to be made like him. And the one who is thus made like him can enter into the kingdom (1:9–11). Entrance into the kingdom, whether for the living or the dead, thus has a gospel pattern to it, although in this letter Peter is not as apparent about it as in 1 Peter.
Likewise, the reference to the power and the arrival of the Lord Jesus Christ in 1:16 inherently relies on the occurrence of his resurrection. For he must have been raised after his death in order for him to come again in glory. Indeed, his resurrection followed by ascension and exaltation to his rule in heaven is what makes possible the present time in which the patience of the Lord allows for salvation (3:9, 15). The deferral of the eschatological resolution, the separation in time of the first fruits of the eschatological resurrection from the rest of the same (cf. 1 Cor 15, as well as 1 Cor 6), is precisely the allowance of time (and “space,” as it were) for people to repent and receive salvation. God allows people to use the interval to become joined to Christ through the Holy Spirit, or to remain recalcitrant and face judgment without the hope for defrayal and vindication through union with Christ. Without Jesus’s resurrection, and the larger gospel story of which it is the fulcrum, nothing has changed, and the scoffers of Christ’s arrival in glory are justified in their mocking of the Christian proclamation. But with that resurrection, everything changes, and the present time is indeed an extended outflowing of the mercy of God shown in Christ, whereby he allows for others to receive what he has accomplished in the Christ risen from the dead and exalted.
Of course, the fact that there is a day of judgment itself attests to the resurrection (2:9; 3:7), given how often resurrection is associated with judgment. For the dead, resurrection will be necessary for them to face judgment one way or the other. This is something we have seen in the OT, Second Temple literature, and in the NT. There is no reason to think 2 Peter is an exception to the rule.
Finally, in 3:11–13, Peter exhorts his readers on how they ought to live in light of the coming conflagration of the cosmos (which we will explore more next time). With the eschatological awareness of what is to come, he says his readers are to live as people who will be preserved through the conflagration and enter into the new creation. This is parallel to his language earlier about entering the kingdom. Indeed, he says “righteousness/justice dwells” in the new creation. Thus, those who are characterized by the same will dwell there. Peter clearly expects to be among those who receive this promise of God, despite the fact that he expects to die soon (1:13–14). The only way he can partake of the new creation/kingdom of God is for him to be resurrected like his Lord was. God’s inexorable, faithful love mean that neither death nor the conflagration of the cosmos can prevent him from keeping his promises to his beloved, and from doing so in such a personal way as to raise the dead to involve them specifically in the fulfillment of his promises. That was made clear to Daniel in Dan 12:13, and the confidence of the same is implicit in 2 Peter as well. Indeed, the hope of eschatological resurrection only makes sense in the context of God’s larger cosmic project of new creation. Otherwise, there is an anthropological hole in the logic of new creation.
We do not see a direct theology of resurrection in 2 Peter. But what we do find here are things that we have often found linked to resurrection throughout the NT, including as recently as our analysis of 1 Peter. These common motifs include resurrection’s link to Christlikeness and Godlikeness (or similar descriptions), resurrection’s link with the reception of everlasting life, resurrection’s context in the kingdom of God and new creation that makes resurrection make sense, the connection of resurrection with final judgment, and the necessity of Jesus’s resurrection for there to be any hope of his coming again.