John Calvin Commentary 2 Peter 1:4

"whereby he hath granted unto us his precious and exceeding great promises; that through these ye may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in that world by lust." — 2 Peter 1:4 (ASV)

Whereby are given to us. It is doubtful whether he refers only to glory and power, or to the preceding things also. The whole difficulty arises from this—that what is said here is not suitable to the glory and virtue which God confers on us; but if we read, “by his own glory and power,” there will be no ambiguity or perplexity. For the things that have been promised to us by God ought to be properly and justly deemed the effects of his power and glory.

At the same time, the copies vary here also, for some have δι’ ὃν, “on account of whom;” so the reference may be to Christ. Whichever of the two readings you choose, the meaning will still be, first, that the promises of God ought to be most highly valued, and secondly, that they are gratuitous, because they are offered to us as gifts. And he then shows the excellence of the promises: that they make us partakers of the divine nature, than which nothing better can be conceived.

For we must consider from where God raises us up to such a height of honor. We know how abject the condition of our nature is; that God, then, should make himself ours, so that all his things should, in a manner, become our things—the greatness of his grace cannot be sufficiently conceived by our minds.

Therefore, this consideration alone ought to be abundantly sufficient to make us renounce the world and carry us aloft to heaven. Let us then note that the end of the gospel is to render us eventually conformable to God and, if we may so speak, to deify us.

But the word nature here is not essence but quality. The Manicheans formerly dreamed that we are a part of God and that, after having run the race of life, we will at last revert to our origin. Even today, there are fanatics who imagine that we thus pass over into the nature of God, so that his nature swallows up our nature.

Thus they explain what Paul says, that God will be all in all (1 Corinthians 15:28), and in the same sense they interpret this passage. But such a delirium as this never entered the minds of the holy Apostles; they only intended to say that when divested of all the vices of the flesh, we will be partakers of divine and blessed immortality and glory, so as to be, as it were, one with God as far as our capacities will allow.

This doctrine was not altogether unknown to Plato, who everywhere defines the chief good of man to be an entire conformity to God; but as he was involved in the mists of errors, he afterwards glided off to his own inventions.

But we, disregarding empty speculations, ought to be satisfied with this one thing—that the image of God in holiness and righteousness is restored to us. The purpose of this restoration is that we may at last be partakers of eternal life and glory, to the extent necessary for our complete felicity.

Having escaped. We have already explained that the Apostle’s design was to set before us the dignity of the glory of heaven, to which God invites us, and thus to draw us away from the vanity of this world. Moreover, he sets the corruption of the world in opposition to the divine nature; but he shows that this corruption is not in the elements which surround us, but in our heart, because vicious and depraved affections prevail there, the fountain and root of which he points out by the word lust. Corruption, then, is thus described as being in the world so that we may know that the world is in us.