“By Silvanus, our faithful brother as I consider him, I have written to you briefly, exhorting and testifying that this is the true grace of God in which you stand.”
Verses 12-14 are the postscript to the epistle, the PS. Peter wrote the PS in his own hand.
I [Peter] have written to you briefly,
Peter recorded most of First Peter by using an amanuensis (a secretary who penned the epistle — Silvanus). Now he puts his personal pen to the epistle.
exhorting and testifying
Peter shows why he wrote to the Asia Minor Christians (Turkey today). He wanted to do two things:
1) exhort and
2) testify.
“Exhorting” means to encourage or appeal. Peter encouraged the believers throughout this epistle to live under “the true grace of God” during adversity.
“Testifying” denotes to bear witness. To give testimony is to provide the most vital assurance to his readers that the purpose of this letter was “the true grace of God.”
that this is the true grace of God
All of Peter’s exhorting and testifying in First Peter revolved around “the true grace of God.” Every command and every testimony must center on grace. The “true grace of God” is the operating principle of the entire epistle of First Peter. The child of God can withstand persecution if they stand in the grace of God (1 Pe 1:13; 4:10; 5:10).
Ac 20:32, “So now, brethren, I commend you to God and to the word of His grace, which is able to build you up and give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified.”
1 Co 15:10, “But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me was not in vain; but I labored more abundantly than they all, yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.”
2 Co 1:12, “For our boasting is this: the testimony of our conscience that we conducted ourselves in the world in simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom but by the grace of God, and more abundantly toward you.”
2 Co 8:1, “Moreover, brethren, we make known to you the grace of God bestowed on the churches of Macedonia: 2that in a great trial of affliction the abundance of their joy and their deep poverty abounded in the riches of their liberality.”
He 2:9, “But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor, that He, by the grace of God, might taste death for everyone.”
There must be a false grace if there is “true grace.” Satan imitates everything God does. Sometimes imitation grace looks as good as the real thing. Fabrication is how the devil deceives people. He sells them a bill of goods that licentiousness is a genuine grace. Some turn the grace of God into lewdness. They spin the idea of grace contrary to God’s view of grace. Grace is vulnerable to some who use it as an excuse for sin (Jude 4).
PRINCIPLE:
God’s grace is the operating principle for all suffering and Christian living.
APPLICATION:
Are we conscious that it is Jesus who bestows upon us the power to live the Christian life? We have the right to live in God’s power, not because of who and what we are, but because of who and what Jesus was and did. God delivers us by his sovereign unadulterated grace. He asks for no work, no merit, nor effort on our part. He does not save us nor empower us by Christ plus anything but by Christ plus nothing. It is not Christ plus our religion or Christ plus anything. It is Christ plus nothing that equals salvation or even sanctification.
Ro 4:5, “But to him who does not work but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness.”
Jesus did it all. He suffered all that needed to be sustained for our sins. No effort of our own can save or sustain us. Whether becoming a Christian or growing as a Christian, it is all by grace (2 Peter 3:18).
