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Most English versions of the Bible translate 2 Peter 1:1 as does the NASB,
which attributes "God" and "Savior" to one
person: Jesus Christ. In this way, they provide evidence that
Peter called Jesus "our God" (Greek: tou
theou hêmôn) - a strong indication of His Deity. Some
translations, however, render the verse in a fashion similar to the ASV:
"by the righteousness of our God and the Savior, Jesus
Christ." The insertion of "the" before Savior
indicates that there are two persons in view: Our God (the Father)
and Jesus Christ.
Most apologetic debate on this verse has centered on the
so-called Granville Sharp Rule. For several papers dealing with this
Rule, see For
Further Reading... below.
But even if the Granville Sharp Rule is not a valid rule
of Greek grammar, or if it is, but 2 Peter 1:1 is not an example of it,
there is substantial contextual evidence that both "God" and
"Savior" modify Jesus Christ. First, there are three examples of a similar phrase in 2 Peter in which it is clear that one
person is in view: namely, "our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ"
(1:11; 2:20; 3:18). The Greek of this phrase is identical to the
Greek of "our God and Savior, Jesus Christ," with the exception
of Lord/God (kuriou/theou). In 3:2, we find "the Lord
and Savior," again signifying one person. It would seem inconceivable that Peter would intend two persons in one case and one person in all the
others, when employing the same (or nearly the same, in the case of 3:2) Greek construction every time.
Further, Peter uses the phrase "our God and
Father" in 1 Peter 1:3 (Greek: ho
theos kai patêr). Again, one person, not two are in
view. The differences between this phrase and those in 2 Peter are a
matter of case (ho theos is nominative, whereas tou theou is
genitive) and the pronoun "our" (Greek: hêmôn),
neither of which is significant in determining the intended
referent.
The final difficulty in supposing that "God"
refers to the Father in 2 Peter 1:1 is what to do with "by the
righteousness." Peter's point, here, is that the faith he and
his fellow Christians have received is "by" (or "in")
the "righteousness of our God and [the] Savior." The Greek
makes it clear that the righteousness is that of both God and Jesus Christ
(both "God" and "Savior, Jesus Christ" are in the
genitive case). Both God and Christ (if there are two persons in
view) are the source of our faith - and that source is the one
righteousness they share. As Bigg rightly argues:
Are we to say with Wiesinger that God is righteous in
so far as He ordained the Atonement, Jesus Christ in so far as He
accomplished it? or must we not think with Spitta, that the
Atonement is not here in question at all; because it can hardly be meant
that, on the ground of the Atonement, a faith has been given to the
readers of the Epistle which is isotimos ["equal in
honor"] to that of the writer? The righteousness intended is not
that which makes atonement, but that which gives equally. But, if
the righteousness is one and the same, it becomes exceedingly difficult
to keep God and Christ apart (Bigg,
p. 252).1
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objection:
A number of non-Trinitarian apologists have written about this
verse. They typically argue that this verse is either not an example
of the Granville Sharp Rule, or that the Rule itself is not a valid rule
of Greek grammar.
Response:
Please see the For Further Reading section,
below, for several articles responding to non-Trinitarian arguments, defending the Granville Sharp
Rule and its application to 2 Peter 1:1
Jehovah's
Witnesses
objection:
Apologist Greg Stafford objects to the grammatical parallels cited in the
Commentary, above, saying that they are actually "proof to the
contrary" - that is, that Peter is actually referring to two persons
in 2 Peter 1:1:
We can see that four out of the five articulated [sic] nouns are the
same; one is significantly different. In 2 Peter 1:1 we have qeoV
and in the other four Peter uses kurioV.
The question we ask is, Why would Peter call Christ "God" in
verse 1, but in 1:11, 2:20, 3:2, and 3:18 use "Lord"?
That he might do just that is, of course, not impossible. But he
uses "Lord" for Jesus in a number of instances....However,
when referring to the Father, Peter uses qeoV
45 times, excluding 2 Peter 1:1 (Stafford,
p. 404).
Stafford says that "grammatical, theological, contextual, and
other considerations" must play an equal role in translation.
Among these other considerations are the "author's habitual use of
language and the presuppositional pool he shares with his readers" (Stafford,
p. 403). Citing Winer, who objects to Paul and Peter calling Jesus
God in Titus 2:13 and 2 Peter 1:1 due to what he views as the "doctrinal systems"
of the authors, Stafford concludes that "it is very likely that in 2
Peter 1:1 the apostle did not repeat the article before the second noun
because the use of qeoV in the first verse made
it clear enough that he was speaking of the Father, while the addition of
"Jesus Christ" after swthroV would
have stood on its own as a second subject" (Stafford,
p. 404).
Response:
It is certainly a truism of Bible translation and exegesis that one must
take a number of factors into consideration, apart from grammatical
possibility. A writer's "habitual use of language" and the
"presuppositional pool" he 'swims' in are perfectly valid
indicators to help the translator determine original intent. However, one cannot simply pick and choose which factors are most
significant and ignore or sidestep factors that one does not like.
One cannot assume the author's presuppositions on the basis of arguments
from silence. The fact that Peter may not call Jesus "God"
elsewhere is not an argument that he could not do so in this verse, as Mr.
Stafford admits. The question is: Is there anything in Peter's
theology that expressly precludes him from calling Jesus
"God?" If there were, Mr. Stafford and the numerous other
non-Trinitarian apologists who have written on this verse would surely
have mentioned it.
The issue at hand is one of resolving referential ambiguity: Does
"God" and "Savior" refer to one Person (Jesus Christ)
or two (the Father and the Son)? In such cases, one of the most
important factors - perhaps the most important - is examining the
same grammatical construction in other settings where the meaning is
clear. In another context, this methodology is defended by Mr.
Stafford himself. In one of his Internet postings dealing with the
Dana Mantey Greek Grammar and the translation of John 1:1, Mr. Stafford
writes:
Still, when they referred to Xenophon's Anabasis 1:4:6 EMPORION D' HN
TO XWRION ("the place was a market") and then say "we
have a parallel case to what we have in John 1:1" (Dana and Mantey,
148) the foundation is laid, grammatically, for a parallel translation.
But, of course, the theology of the grammarians overrides their good
grammatical judgment, as is evident by their Trinitarian coloring of
this verse on page 140 of the Manual Grammar (Stafford,
"Greg Stafford Responds to the Julius Mantey Letter to the WTB&TS").
Thus, Mr. Stafford recognizes that parallel grammar is essential in
resolving ambiguity (in John 1:1, a semantic ambiguity centering on the anarthrous
theos), and that theology may override a scholar's "good
grammatical judgment."
If parallel grammatical constructions are valid factors in resolving
referential ambiguity, constructions written by the same author in the
same book are even more compelling. Mr.
Stafford's suggestion that 2 Peter 1:1 is "significantly
different" than the "Lord and Savior" verses in 2 Peter, and therefore should not be understood in the same way,
is special pleading. The substitution of theos
for kurios in 2 Peter 1:1 does not change the grammatical structure
of the phrase. Indeed, as Harris points out, when "Savior"
is used in 2 Peter it always refers to Christ and is always preceded by an
articular noun which also refers
to Christ (Jesus as God, p.
235). It must be pointed out that if Peter wanted to clearly
distinguish Christ from His Father in this verse, he had only to add the
article before "Savior" (Greek: tou theos kai tou sôtêros),
as he does in the very next verse (Greek: tou theou kai Iêsou
tou kuriou hêmôn).2
Mr. Stafford suggests that 2 Thessalonians 1:12 is similar
grammatically to 2 Peter 1:1 ("the grace of our God and [the] Lord
Jesus Christ." Greek: tên charin tou theou hêmôn kai
kuriou Iesou Christou), but here most scholars agree that God and
Jesus are distinguished from one another. Mr. Stafford is correct -
just as he is when he says that "Grammar is not the sole criterion by
which a text should be translated" (Stafford,
p. 403). The difference between this verse and 2 Peter 1:1 is that
here we have "Lord Jesus Christ," which is a common New
Testament formula (occurring 63 times). While Jesus is called
"Savior" many times, He is only referred to with the phrase
"Savior Jesus Christ" 4 times - all in 2 Peter. The fact
that "Lord" appears so often before "Jesus Christ"
makes it likely that it had come to be considered part of a compound
proper name. But the same cannot be said of
"Savior." When Peter writes "Savior Jesus
Christ," he is using a title ("Savior") followed by a name
which further defines who that Savior is.3
This is not the case with "Lord Jesus Christ." There may
have been a time in the early church where a believer might say: "I
serve my Lord, Jesus Christ," and by this, mean to further define
"Lord" as the person named "Jesus Christ." But
by the time the New Testament was written, the title "Lord" had
become synonymous with "Jesus Christ," and when appearing before
it, was thought to be virtually part of His name. This same
phenomenon occurred with "Christ." No New Testament author
would think of separating "Christ" from "Jesus," as
in: "Jesus, Christ" (as if "Christ" further defined
who Jesus was), and the same is true of "Lord."
The fact that "Lord Jesus Christ" may be taken as a unit
makes it unlikely that "Jesus Christ" is appositional to
"God and Lord" (as in, "the grace of our God and Lord, who
is Jesus Christ"). It is grammatically possible, and
some scholars have taken it that way (most notably, Bultmann), but most
scholars, grammarians, and commentators agree that it is more natural to
take "Lord Jesus Christ" as a unit, in which case
"God" is a separate subject. But this is not true of
"Savior Jesus Christ." In this case, it is unlikely that
Peter would expect his readers to take "Savior" as part of
Jesus' name. Instead, because Peter knew that simply saying
"our God and Savior" would lead his readers to assume that
the Father was in view4, he added "Jesus
Christ" to make clear to whom he was referring.
It may be supposed that "God" functions as a proper name in 2
Peter 1:1, in which case it could be isolated from "Savior, Jesus
Christ" as a second subject. However, while "God" may
function as a proper name in some contexts, the possessive pronoun in this
verse militates against "God" being a proper name.
Further, there are no examples in the NT or LXX in which "God"
appears in the same construction as 2 Peter 1:1 (articular
theos joined by kai to an anarthrous
singular, personal noun that is not a proper name) where two persons are
in view.
In conclusion, Mr. Stafford recognizes - as did Winer before him5
- that the grammar of 2 Peter 1:1 leads in a theological direction with
which he is uncomfortable. He therefore must either overcome the
grammar or argue that Peter's theology would preclude him from writing
what - grammatically - he seems clearly to have written. Mr. Stafford's grammatical ripostes actually do little to
damage the solid evidence that Jesus is called "God" in this
verse. Mr. Stafford - again following Winer6 - is left
with his theological argument.7 For an apostle who heard
Thomas call Jesus "my God," who was comfortable directing the
highest praise to Christ in doxological formulas, and who ascribed to
Christ the same righteousness as His Father, it is far from impossible
that Peter called Jesus "God," particularly when the grammar
points us solidly in that direction.
Soli Deo Gloria
__________________
Notes
1. Harris
(p. 234 n. 13) objects on the basis that Pauline salutations often
attribute "grace...and peace" to two persons - God and Christ -
and cites Galatians 1:3 as an example. But, as Bigg says in another
context, "the question is not what other authors say, but what 2
Peter says" (Bigg, p.
252). Further, if Peter is echoing Pauline greetings with which he
is no doubt familiar (c.f., 2 Peter 3:15), it may be because he
understands Paul to be unifying God and Christ by naming them the joint
source of grace and peace. After all, the grace exhibited by God
cannot be the same grace exhibited by Christ, unless Christ is
truly God - for only God can extend "unmerited favor" in regard
to Man's sin and His perfect judgment. Grace is "of God"
given to Christians "by Christ" (1 Corinthians 1:4). But
Paul says the same grace is from both God and Christ in his
salutations (e.g., Romans 1:7; 1 Corinthians 1:3; 2 Corinthians 1:2;
Galatians 1:3; Ephesians 1:2; etc.). While grace is from God through
Christ, it is also from Christ directly, for grace is His to give as well
(Romans 16:20). Thus, the Pauline salutations do not contradict
Bigg's point, but rather support it.
2. Mr. Stafford turns this argument around when
he says: "it would appear that Peter removes all doubt as he goes on
to distinguish Christ and God in the very next verse." But he
rightly notes that this distinction in verse two does not preclude Peter
from calling Christ God in verse 1 (Stafford,
pp. 404-405). The distinction in verse 2 is made by the use of the
article. Stafford's suggestion - following Winer - that
"Savior" is sufficiently definite to not require the article - is
true, but beside the point. Most definite nouns in the New Testament
are articular, as indeed
"Lord" (kurios) is in verse 2. But the addition of
the article in verse 2 does not make kurios definite. Like
"Savior," "Lord" is definite in Peter's use, even when
anarthrous (e.g., 2 Peter 2:9),
and would be definite here without the article. Instead, the article
in verse 2 marks "Lord" as a second subject, alongside
"God" - the very thing Peter could have done in verse 1, had he
wished to distinguish "Savior" from "God."
3. In technical terms, "Jesus Christ"
stands in epexegetic apposition to "Savior." Appositional
nouns further define the head-noun, as in: "This is my friend,
Roger." We may use the gloss "who is" to help identify appositional nouns (e.g., "This
is my friend, who is Roger").
4. When the articular theos is followed by
kai and a title in the NT, the title always refers to God, never to
a second person. E.g., ho theos kai patêr ("The God and
Father").
5. "In Titus ii. 13...considerations derived
from Paul's system of doctrine lead me to believe that swthroV
is not a second predicate, co-ordinate with qeou....similar
is 2 Peter 1:1" (Winer-Moulton, p. 162).
6. "In the above remarks, it was not my
intention to deny that, in point of grammar, swthroV
hmwn may be regarded as a second predicate, jointly, depending on
the aritcle tou; but the dogmatic conviction
derived from Paul's writings is that this apostle cannot have called
Christ the great God induced me to show that there is no
grammatical obstacle to our taking the clause kai swt....Cristou
by itself, as referring to a second subject" (Ibid.). It will
be noted that Winer declares that "Lord" and "Savior"
in 2 Peter 1:11 are "merely predicates of the same person" (Ibid.,
p. 126). In Schmiedel's translation and revision of Winer's Grammar,
he says emphatically of 2 Peter 1:1 and Titus 2:13: "grammar demands
that one person be meant" (Winer-Schmiedel, p. 158).
7. Witness author Rolf Furuli gives up entirely
on the grammar: "The translator, therefore, is in a situation where
neither the lexical contents of the words nor the context are decisive,
and the syntax is not decisive. The only thing left is the
translator's theology" (Furuli,
p. 286). Mr. Furuli dismisses the grammatical parallels on the basis
that 2 Peter 1:1 and Titus 2:13 contain the proper name Jesus Christ, but
as discussed, above, this name is in apposition to "Savior" -
just as it is in the parallels! - and does not invalidate the
construction. We may further note that even if the grammar were
neutral, as Mr. Furuli asserts, there are ways to approach the translation
that do not rely entirely on the translator's theology, such as adding the
alternate translation in a footnote - something the New World
Translation, which Mr. Furuli is ultimately defending, does not do.
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