During my Bible study this morning, I was reading in 2 Peter and in the first verse stumbled across something I do not recall seeing before—an “aha” moment. Here is the verse in my primary study Bible, the King James Version.
KJV 2 Peter 1:1 Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ, to them that have obtained like precious faith with us through the righteousness of God and our Saviour Jesus Christ:
However, I discovered this tiny difference—which makes a significant difference in English. We are focusing on the last phrase: “through the righteousness of God and our Saviour Jesus Christ:”
Well, actually there are two differences, but the first does not affect doctrine. The word “through” in the KJV is translated “in” in almost all other versions. The Greek word is “en” which means “in.” The Greek word for “through” is “dia,” but this is a very minor difference.
The second is doctrinally significant and this is concerning the adjective “our”. The Greek has the that word before the word “God.” As in the Young’s Literal Translation:
YLT 2 Peter 1:1 Simeon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who did obtain a like precious faith with us in the righteousness of our God and Saviour Jesus Christ:
Why is this important and significant? Because it is another of the scores of Scriptures which support the deity of Christ. It equates “God” with “Saviour Jesus Christ.”
Rotherham’s Emphasized Version, another literal translation has it this way:
2 Peter 1:1 Simon Peter, servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, unto them who have obtained, equally precious, faith, with us, in the righteousness of our God, and Saviour Jesus Christ.
Punctuation is not inspired, and I would simply omit the comma after “God.”
Here are a few other translations:
NKJ (New King James) 2 Peter 1:1 Simon Peter, a bondservant and apostle of Jesus Christ, To those who have obtained like precious faith with us by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ:
NAU (New American Standard Bible - 1995) 2 Peter 1:1 Simon Peter, a bond-servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, To those who have received a faith of the same kind as ours, by the righteousness of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ:
NRS (New Revised Standard) 2 Peter 1:1 Simeon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, To those who have received a faith as precious as ours through the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ:
BBE (Bible in Basic English) 2 Peter 1:1 Simon Peter, a servant and Apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who with us have a part in the same holy faith in the righteousness of our God and Saviour Jesus Christ:
NJB (New Jerusalem Bible – Roman Catholic) 2 Peter 1:1 Simon Peter, servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who have received a faith as precious as our own, given through the saving justice of our God and Saviour Jesus Christ.
As we have discussed in our lectures series on The Divinity of Christ, the Jehovah’s Witnesses do not believe in the deity of Christ. Therefore, it is not surprising to see their (mis-)translation in their New World Translation:
NWT: Simon Peter, a slave and an apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who have acquired a faith as precious as ours through the righteousness of our God and the Savior Jesus Christ:
Notice how they have handled the second part of the boldfaced phrase. By adding “the” it tends to separate “Savior Jesus Christ” from “God.”
In any event, I do not recall that I had seen this verse in the context of the deity of Christ when I provided a massive number of Scriptural proofs of His deity in that series, The Divinity of Christ, which we serialized in blog form. You can begin here for more.
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