2 Peter 1:2

Grace and peace be multiplied unto you Here the writer falls into the phraseology of the First Epistle (see note on 1 Peter 1:2), but adds to the simple benediction the words "through (better in) the knowledge of God and Jesus our Lord." The word for "knowledge" (epignosis) hovers between the meaning of "complete knowledge" and the recognition which implies love. It does not occur in the First Epistle. In St Paul's Epistles it meets us first in Romans 1:28; Romans 3:20, and occurs more or less frequently in most of the subsequent Epistles. In 1 Corinthians 13:8; 1 Corinthians 13:12 the verb from which it is formed is contrasted with the less perfect knowledge expressed by gnosis. Looking to the history of the words, it would seem probable that in proportion as rash and self-asserting teaching boasted of the higher gnosis, the "science, falsely so called," of 1 Timothy 6:20, which afterwards developed into the heresies of the Gnosticsect, the true teachers set up the other word as expressing something nobler and more excellent. "Not gnosis," they seem to say, "but epignosis, not an abstract speculative knowledge, but that which implies a fulness of contemplation, loving as well as knowing." St Peter's use of the word in this Epistle, obviously written after closer contact with false teachers of this kind than is traceable in the First, admits, probably, of this explanation.

Jesus our Lord The peculiar construction, as distinct from "Christ Jesus" and "the Lord Jesus," occurs elsewhere only in Romans 4:24.