Like the First Epistle, the Second is written to believers of the circumcision (see 2 Peter 3:1). The First Epistle unfolds the true grace of God in which we stand, and gives many solemn exhortations to saints passing through suffering for righteousness sake and for the Name of Jesus. This Second Epistle has also many exhortations, and gives divine light concerning God's government of the world. In the First Epistle we learn that judgment begins at the House of God; here we see the judgment of the world, judgment on the corruption and wickedness of men, and finishing with the burning up of the heaven and earth.
We are left in no doubt as to who the writer is. If chapter 3:1 shows that the same author wrote both epistles, the opening verse of this chapter tells us it is Simon Peter, the same Simon Peter who was with the Lord Jesus on the glory mount (v. 18). He was a bondman and apostle of Jesus Christ. Precious privilege, to be in the service of the Lord Jesus, serving Him while ministering to those who are loved by Jesus; carrying out too his appointed work as apostle to the circumcision, in the writing of this letter. There is no writer's name to the Hebrew epistle, for it was evidently not written by the apostle to the circumcision: it was doubtless written by Paul (2 Peter 3:15), and the fact that he was not the apostle to the circumcision is probably one of the reasons for the omission of the writer's name.
If the letter is for the dispersed of Israel, it is for believers, for those who had received like precious faith with Peter and those with whom he met. While the mass of Israel were marked by unbelief, there was the remnant of grace that had received this precious faith. They had received this faith; it was God's gift to them; just as Paul had said to the Ephesians, "For ye are saved by grace, through faith; and this not of yourselves; it is God's gift: not on the principle of works, that no one might boast." It was the faith of Christianity, faith in the divine revelation of God in the Person of the Son; and if divinely given, it was a right thing for God so to do. In granting this precious faith to them, God, in Jesus, manifested Himself as a Saviour God, for it was through faith that they laid hold of the salvation available in Jesus, and made known in the Gospel. If God acts in perfect consistency with His nature and character in clearing the believer from every charge of guilt, it is the same in His granting faith to the remnant of Israel, and to ourselves also, who, from among the Gentiles are vessels of mercy.
Grace and peace are invoked, the grace that enables us to enter into the things of God, to enjoy what God has given to us; the peace that can keep the spirit from all disquiet while we pass through a world of corruption and trouble. But it is in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord that grace and peace are multiplied to us. The more we are in communion with God and with the Lord Jesus, the more we are enriched with divine grace, and the more are we preserved in peace amidst the present conditions of this world, which is fast ripening for judgment.