What’s the Big Deal About Walking Away from Jesus? Can it be THAT Bad? - Part 1

A Grand and Sharp View of the Role of Jesus

No one expects Peter to begin his letter with an earthshattering statement. But he does.

He opens his second letter purposely using a grammatical construction that shakes the ground under every reader who understands what he is doing. In 2 Peter 1:1, Peter uses a Koine Greek grammar rule, what grammarians have termed the Granville Sharp Rule to present A Grand and Sharp View of the Role of Jesus. And what Peter presents is nothing less than a quaking declaration of Jesus’ full and unmistakable divinity that reverberates throughout the rest of his letter.

The rule is simple: In Koine Greek, when a single definite article governs two singular, personal nouns joined by καί (“and”), those nouns refer to one person.

Peter uses it in the opening line of his letter:

“Our God and Savior Jesus Christ.” (1:1)

τοῦ θεοῦ ἡμῶν καὶ σωτῆρος Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ

The two nouns are God and Savior, and the one person they refer to is Jesus Christ. (See the illustration to the left.)

Peter isn’t hinting. He isn’t implying. He isn’t being poetic. He is being precise, intentional, and unapologetic. One definite article governing two nouns is a purposeful way to identify those nouns as a single, unified person or object. In this case, “God” and “Savior” are united in the one definite person of Jesus Christ.

To an English reader, the phrase may seem subtle and most likely most unnoticeable. To a Greek reader, it is a cataclysmic introductory bombshell. Peter begins his letter with this theological earthquake. And because it is so important to the entirety of Peter’s letter, it is worth double citation:

“Our God and Savior Jesus Christ.” (1:1)

τοῦ θεοῦ ἡμῶν καὶ σωτῆρος Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ

This is not a passing phrase. It is the decisive theological anchor of the entire letter. Everything Peter will say in the rest of his letter— about growth, false teachers, the future, and daily life — flows from this single reality: Jesus is God. Not “like God.” Not “sent by God.” Not “reflecting God.” He is God. That is exactly what the Granville Sharp Rule states.

This earthshaking grammatical construction gives us A Grand and Sharp View of the Role of Jesus: He is the God who saves, the very God Israel confesses throughout the Old Testament. The titles Peter uses — “God” and “Savior” — are titles Yahweh reserves only for Himself:

• “I, the LORD, am your Savior.” (Isaiah 43:3)

• “Besides Me there is no Savior.” (Isaiah 43:11)

• “I am God, and there is no other.” (Isaiah 45:5)

Peter places both these titles squarely on the shoulders of Jesus by using one simple grammatical rule that explodes from the page. That's not subtle or unnoticeable. That’s purposeful and intentional identification.

And this identification is relational. The pronoun ἡμῶν (“our”) sits right in the middle of the construction. Jesus is our God. Our Savior. Our Christ. Our Lord. He is the relational center of Christian identity. To belong to Jesus is to belong to God. To walk away from Jesus is to walk away from God. (For an understanding of Peter’s view of "relational knowledge", see my previous blog series titled "Peter’s Relational Framework - The Structure of the Spiritual Life."

The concept of Peter's relational framework is built with an emphasis on the phrase "the knowledge (ἐπίγνωσις/ἐπιγινώσκω) of God and of Jesus". This matters deeply when we reach chapter 3 where Peter discusses the consequences for those who walk away from Jesus.

His urgency throughout the letter is driven by a genuine pastoral crisis: He is writing to one believing community consisting of various groups: some who are "barely escaping living in error"(2:18), some who are contemplating "forsaking the way (2:15), some who have forgotten the forgiveness of their sins (1:9), and some who have even "denied their Master who bought them (2:1). Those community congregants who have walked away from Jesus cannot be categorized as merely immoral. No, they have drifted so far away from Jesus, they now have reached a stage where they have become blind to the identity of the One they have walked away from. Peter writes because he knows the truth they do not: abandoning Jesus is abandoning God. This series begins where Peter begins, with Jesus Himself, so that the weight of his warnings could be understood by those who don't.

Throughout his letter, Peter never changes audience participants. That is, he speaks to the same community throughout the letter, a community that knows (ἐπίγνωσις/ἐπιγινώσκω) Jesus: a community who has “been granted a faith of equal standing to all other believers” (1:1)

The understanding we gain from Peter's use of "know" (ἐπίγνωσις/ἐπιγινώσκω) is that since the audience participants never change throughout the letter, the false teachers who Peter warns in chapter 3 are part of the community who were granted faith in chapter 1. The faith of those whom Peter warns in chapter 3 is equal to the faith of those Peter blesses in chapter 1. The audience of chapter 3 is from within that believing community. They are not outsiders dabbling in doctrinal or moral error; they are ineffective and unproductive (1:9) believers who have drifted away from a growing mindset and chose to walk away from a relationship with Jesus altogether. And because Jesus is God, walking away from a relationship with Him is walking away from a relationship with God Himself, the One who granted them faith in the first place.

That is why the stakes in are so high for Peter. That is why it is a BIG DEAL to walk away from a relationship with Jesus.

Having laid the foundation in 1:1 of Jesus' divinity, Peter then builds a more detailed model of Jesus’ divine activity in the rest of the chapter: He characterizes Jesus in a way that only God is characterized:

• Jesus shares in the divine bestowal of grace and peace (1:2).

• Jesus possesses divine power (1:3).

• Jesus grants life and godliness — something only God does (1:3).

• Jesus’ divine nature allows believers to partake of His divine nature (1:4).

• Knowing Jesus produces godliness (1:8). How is godliness produced if not by God

• Jesus rules an eternal kingdom (1:11). Only God is eternal.

By the time we reach verse 11, Peter has already introduced Jesus as God, Savior, Life‑Giver, Mediator of divine nature, and Eternal King. This is not a casual introduction. It is an earth‑shaking theological declaration that should rattle the cage of anyone who asks, “What’s the big deal about walking away from Jesus? Can it be THAT bad?” Peter's answer is, "Yes — it can."

Because when one walks away from a relationship with Jesus, one walks away from the One who possesses and imparts great blessings:

• every blessing of grace and peace He offers,

• the life and godliness His divine power grants,

• participation in His divine nature,

• and the eternal kingdom He rules.

• and a precious faith granted to them

These are not small losses. They are catastrophic losses. Nothing is more devastating than choosing to step outside the kingdom of God, cutting oneself off from faith, His grace, His peace, and the very divine nature He meant us to share. Everything else we fear is small compared to the tragedy of refusing Him and the life He freely gives.

So, yes, one's relationship with Jesus is a BIG DEAL and the consequences of walking away from him make it an even bigger deal. There is no bigger deal. So, yes, it can be THAT bad. (We will look at how much worse it is in future posts.)

In the next post, we will follow Peter into chapter two, to the mountain where Jesus was transformed before his eyes— a moment of divine majesty that strengthened Peter’s relational confidence in Jesus and confirmed again that Jesus is Divine, as God decares Him to be "His beloved Son."

We will see how that mountain‑top experience became one of Peter’s living memories. That firsthand encounter with Jesus’ divine majesty deepened his knowledge of Christ and compelled him to employ a precise Koine Greek grammatical construction to declare Jesus as “our God and Savior”. The grammar and the glory of the mountain speak with one voice: Jesus is truly our God and Savior.

In chapter 2, Peter personally experiences the glory of God shining in the face of Christ and he will share that experience with us.

Let's climb the mountain together with Peter in the next blog.