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Alpha & Omega Ministries Apologetics Blog
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Paul vs. Peter: Round 1
07/27/2010 - Jamin Hubner
Orthodox Christian theology teaches that “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work,”(II Timothy 3:16). Granted, some texts may be more directly applicable to certain audiences than others. Context determines the outcome. But since all Scripture is equally “inspired,” all Scripture is somehow relevant to the church, no matter what age the church is in. As the New Dictionary of Biblical Theology puts it,The theology of I Peter is essentially Pauline…more remarkable are the literary resemblances between I Peter and other NT writings, especially Romans, Ephesians, and James. [1]
Hyper-Dispensationalism does not agree with this teaching. Just as they believe that Jesus’ gospel was one of works-righteous salvation, they teach that the gospel of Peter was also opposed to grace. As Pastor Havard says regarding Paul,
Some may be thinking that salvation by grace through faith is found before Paul. We beg to differ! While it's true that salvation has always been by faith, it is only with the dispensation of Grace that it has been by faith ALONE. Salvation has always been by a faith response to what God has said. In previous dispensations, He said "believe and DO." It is only now (as Paul says, "But now") that the message is to "only believe."[2]
And as Finck declared regarding Peter,
Is Peter still preaching the necessity of some kind of righteous works to be accepted by the Lord? Yes. Works of righteousness. Peter…preaches this in II Peter 1:5-11 where he says “…add to your faith…”[3]
When we actually look at the text the hyper-dispensationalist quotes (in this case, II Peter 1:5), we are once again left scratching our heads:
For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness. (2 Peter 1:5-6, ESV)
Clearly, when Peter says “supplement your faith” he isn’t suggesting that by doing so the person will be soteriologically “accepted by the Lord,” for the people he is talking to are already Christians! Whatever is added is added to existing saving faith. We “add” to our faith to please the Lord in our sanctification by being obedient and following the desires of our new heart, not to earn salvation. As the ESV Study Bible remarked,
This list does not reflect a legalistic code but rather the desires and features of a transformed heart (cf. “for this very reason,” 2 Pet. 1:5). The exhortations to live a new life are grounded in the divine power and promises that were granted to believers when they came to know Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord.[4]
Regardless, Finck continues to drive a wedge between Paul and Peter:
“…that believe: for there is no difference; for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.”…This is not what Peter preached, but it is what Paul preached – two different gospels. Let us look at I Peter 2:9, “But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.” A royal priesthood a holy nation. Is Peter talking to members of the Body of Christ? Is he saying we are a holy nation? If we are a nation, what nation are we? Peter is speaking to the Israelites, the godly remnant of Israel in his generation. He gets this right out of Exodus 19…We, as the Body of Christ, do not make up a nation. The Body of Christ is made up of people of many nations. But Peter is writing to a nation here. The nation of Israel.[5]
As always, it is necessary to look at the whole context of a particular verse before going on to make definite assertions about the nature of a person’s perspective (Peter’s “gospel”). In this case, Finck is arguing about the recipient of Peter’s writings. He chooses to look at the second chapter of his first letter.
We’ve learned to be suspicious when a hyper-dispensationalist does this. Earlier, Finck tried to determine who Romans was written to by looking at the end of the book. He did the same with Galatians. Now, he does the same with the epistles of Peter. He ignores the first chapter of the letter to determine who it’s written to. Again, we have to ask why he is doing this. Why shouldn’t a person look at the beginning of a letter to find out who it’s written to? The answer is obvious: because that would demonstrate the inconsistency of Hyper-Dispensationalism.
David Havard is even more dogmatic:
The fact that Peter wrote these epistles should let us know that they are not written to us since we know that Paul is our apostle.[6]
Notice the circularity of this argument: the hyper-dispensationalist claim that Peter isn’t written to us is proven by the hyper-dispensationalist dogma that Paul is absolutely doctrinally distinctive. Havard begins with his presuppositions, and proves them only by restating another presupposition of Hyper-Dispensationalism. As with all circular arguments of this type, nothing is proved.
Sound exegesis requires that one looks at the introduction of a letter to let the original author define the original recipient of his or her own work. Here is the introduction to I Peter:
Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, To those who are elect exiles of the dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, according to the foreknowledge of god the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood: May grace and peace be multiplied to you. (I Peter 1:1-2, ESV)
Peter says he’s writing to the “elect exiles” (ἐκλεκτοῖς παρεπιδήμοις διασπορᾶς), or “to those temporarily residing abroad…who are chosen,” (NET). The question is, who exactly are these people? Are they Jews? Are they Gentiles?
Again, like Romans and Galatians, the answer is both.
The ESV Study Bible says:
Most scholars are convinced that the recipients of I Peter were primarily Gentiles. The reference to their “former ignorance” (1:14) and “the futile ways inherited from your forefathers” (1:18) suggests a pagan past that would not fit with Jewish readers. Further, the former lifestyle of the readers (4:3-4) fits with Gentiles rather than Jews. But undoubtedly there were also some Jewish Christians in these churches, for Jewish residents of “Cappadocia, Pontus, and Asia” were present at Pentecost and heard the gospel at that early date (Acts 2:9).[7]
Carson and Moo agree in An Introduction to the New Testament:
2:10…1:18…4:3…The language “not my people” points to Gentiles (c.f. Rom. 9:24-25; Eph. 2:11-12), as do the sins enumerated in 4:3…many scholars conclude that the letter is directed to a mixed Jewish/Gentile audience. But the explicit references we have mentioned suggest that, whatever the population of the churches may have been, Peter’s intended audience is mainly, if not exclusively, Gentile.[8]
The Intervarsity Bible Background Commentary also concurs:
An audience in Asia Minor might consist mainly of Jewish Christians, but Peter’s audience probably includes Gentile Christians (cf. 1:18; 4:3-4).[9]
In D.A. Carson and G.K Beale’s monumental work Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament, Carson confirms that I Peter was written to a mixed audience:
Jobes (2005: 29-41, 63-66) has convincingly argued that although the sense of spiritual pilgrimage and transition is certainly present, a concrete setting can be responsibly envisaged in which physical scattering plays part. All five of the regions named in 1:1 were recolonized by Rome under the reign of Claudius. A circumstantial case can be made for the thesis that Christians, both Jews and Gentiles, were among those forcibly sent. If this is correct, then Peter’s readers were Christians (both Jews and Gentiles) who had been converted elsewhere, perhaps in Rome, but whose forceful relocation guaranteed very much their sense of dislocation, setting them up to feel very much like a new generation of exiles in a strange land.[10]
The late Professor George E. Ladd in his “magisterial work,” A Theology of the New Testament, also disagrees with the hyper-dispensationalist and says that the audience was not national Israel:
The letter is addressed “to the exiles of the dispersion” in the provinces of Asia (1:1), but it is clear that these are Gentiles (2:10; 4:3). Probably Peter is a circular letter like Ephesians.[11]
In summary, for clear Scriptural reasons, scholars have concluded that I Peter was written to Gentiles as much as Jews and not strictly to Jews or the “nation” of Israel. This means the citation of I Peter 2:9 that Finck provides (“you are a holy nation”) is misapplied. [12]
[1] A.F. Walls. “First Epistle of Peter,” in The New Dictionary of Biblical Theology (Downers Grove: Intervarsity, 2000), 910.
[2] David Havard, “Why Paul?” (March, 2003). http://www.bereanbiblesociety.org/articles/1046982602.html
[3] Finck, Common Questions, 57.
[4] Grudem and Packer, ESV Study Bible, II Peter 1:5-7.
[5] Ibid., 57-59.
[6] David Havard. “The General Epistles: Where Do They Fit In?” (September, 1999). http://www.bereanbiblesociety.org/articles/999291423.html.
[7] J.I Packer and Wayne Grudem, eds. ESV Study Bible (Wheaton: Crossway, 2008), 2402.
[8] D.A. Carson and Douglas J. Moo, eds. An Introduction to the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2005), 647.
[9] John Walton, Victor Matthew, and Mark Chavalas. The Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament (Downers Grove: Intervarsity, 2000), 281.
[10] D.A. Carson in Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007), 1016.
[11] George Eldon Ladd. A Theology of the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993), 641.
[12] Yet, this doesn’t exactly answer the questions as to why Paul used the language that he did in this introduction. Carson (Ph.D Cambridge) reveals the answer: “As Peter applies the expression [Ex. 19:6] to his Christian readers, the “tribe” or “nation” that he has in mind is made up of Jews and Gentiles alike but are constituted one people, one “nation,” under the terms of the new covenant…by reassuring his readers that they constitute a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, those who have received God’s mercy, Peter is simultaneously accomplishing several things. He is, of course, showing how he understands the true line of continuity to run from the people of God under the new covenant. But equally, he is giving his readers a distinctive identity that is bound up tightly with God’s mercy to them in Christ Jesus…one of those effects, of course, was to make them sufficiently different as a ‘people’ or ‘race’ or ‘nation’ that first-century pagan society would not be long in resenting them. Christians were widely perceived to repudiate some of the widely accepted “pleasures” of the Roman world…Moreover, by thinking of themselves as a ‘nation’ under King Jesus, they had to work out a distinction introduced by their Master: what did they owe to Caesar, and what did they owe to God? Precisely because they were an international “people” and “race” and “nation” who were without the kind of territory that was part of being a “nation” in the eyes of the Romans (and in the assumption of the OT writers), Christians found themselves in eschatological tension that has been both an unavoidable challenge and a glorious privilege throughout two millennia of church history.” Carson, Commentary on the New Testament, 1032-1033. Be sure to read Carson’s entire discussion on the numerous allusions Peter makes to Hosea, Isaiah, and Exodus in this brief set of quotations in I Peter 2:9.
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