We cannot reach the high goal of God's glory and virtue by ourselves.

[jidong xiao]

神已呼召我们到荣耀和美德，藉这荣耀和美德，神一切的应许已赐给我们。这是彼得以“藉这荣耀和美德”开始彼后一章四节的原因。神的应许是保证和鼓励的话。荣耀和美德是神呼召我们到的目标，藉这荣耀和美德，神已将我们所需要的应许赐给我们。

我们已指出，四节的“藉”，原文意凭借，在此也指原因。我们直译这字，好使我们的繙译符合原文。将这话繙作“基于这荣耀和美德”也是正确的；那指明神基于祂呼召我们达到的荣耀和美德，将又宝贵又极大的应许赐给我们。

我们无法凭自己达到神的荣耀和美德这高超的目标。为此，我们需要主。因为我们不知道前途如何，神就将宝贵的应许赐给我们。这些极大的应许中，有一个在马太二十八章二十节：“看哪，我天天与你们同在，直到这世代的终结。”毫无疑问，这应许对所有的门徒乃是鼓励。

All the promises of God have been given to us through the glory and virtue to which God has called us. This is the reason Peter begins verse 4 with the words "through which." God's promises are words of assurance and encouragement. Through the glory and virtue which are the goal to which we have been called, God has given us the promises we need. 

We have pointed out that the Greek preposition translated "through" in verse 4 is dia and that its use here is in the instrumental sense becoming causal. We have rendered this word literally in order to make our translation correspond to the Greek text. It would also have been correct to translate this word "on the basis of which" to indicate that God grants us the precious and exceedingly great promises on the basis of the glory and virtue to which He has called us. 

We cannot reach the high goal of God's glory and virtue by ourselves. For this, we need the Lord. Because we do not know what lies ahead of us, God has given us precious promises. One of these great promises is in Matthew 28:20: "Behold, I am with you all the days until the consummation of the age." No doubt, this promise was an encouragement to all the disciples.