Exploring the Meaning of Epaggelma in Greek

ἐπάγγελμα refers to “a promise.” In the New Testament it appears in 2 Peter, where it frames both the believer’s present participation in God’s work and the community’s forward-looking hope.

Root and Related Words

ἐπάγγελμα is related to the verb epangello (ἐπαγγέλλω), meaning “to profess” (Strong’s G1861). The noun expresses what is professed as a promise.

Occurrences

“by which he has granted to us his precious and exceedingly great promises; that through these you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world by lust.” (2 Peter 1:4)

Here ἐπάγγελμα appears in the plural (“promises”), and the sentence assigns them a decisive role in what God “has granted.” The promises are described as “precious” and “exceedingly great,” language that makes their value and scope part of their force in the passage: they are not casual assurances but weighty commitments. The clause “that through these you may become partakers of the divine nature” connects the promises to a real participation and transformation; the promise is presented as a divine grant that operates “through these,” giving the reader a means by which the stated outcome is reached. The final phrase, “having escaped from the corruption that is in the world by lust,” further situates the promises in a moral and practical setting: the promises stand over against “corruption” and are tied to escape from it. In this verse, ἐπάγγελμα functions as a bridge between God’s giving (“he has granted”) and the believer’s changed condition (“become partakers… having escaped”), so that the promises are not merely future-oriented statements but active instruments within the argument of the sentence.

“But, according to his promise, we look for new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells.” (2 Peter 3:13)

In this occurrence ἐπάγγελμα is singular (“his promise”), and it is the stated basis for a communal posture: “we look for.” The phrase “according to his promise” grounds expectation in God’s commitment rather than in speculation or wish. What is sought is not described vaguely but with concrete content: “new heavens and a new earth,” further characterized as a realm “in which righteousness dwells.” In this setting, ἐπάγγελμα supplies the warrant for hope and shapes its object. The promise defines what the community is oriented toward, and it frames that orientation as an appropriate response: looking for what has been promised. The promise is thus not only a statement from God but also a rule of expectation (“according to”), giving a standard by which the community’s outlook is formed.

Sense and Usage

Across these two Petrine contexts, ἐπάγγελμα keeps its basic sense of “a promise,” yet it is deployed with two complementary emphases. In 2 Peter 1:4, the promises are plural and richly qualified (“precious and exceedingly great”), and they are tied to a present moral and spiritual transition: becoming “partakers of the divine nature” and escaping worldly “corruption.” The promise, in that framing, is not treated as an isolated pledge but as a gift that carries power in the life described by the verse. The logic of the sentence portrays the promises as divinely bestowed and effective “through these,” making them the channel by which the stated participation and escape are spoken of.

In 2 Peter 3:13, the focus narrows to “his promise” in the singular, highlighting unity and definiteness: one promise functions as the ground for a forward-facing expectation. The promise directs attention to a renewed order (“new heavens and a new earth”), and the description “in which righteousness dwells” shows that the promise is not only about change but about the character of what is awaited. In this usage, ἐπάγγελμα anchors hope in God’s word and defines the shape of what is hoped for. Together, the two occurrences show ἐπάγγελμα operating both as the means of a present transformation and as the basis for a future horizon—without shifting away from the core notion of a promise.

The relation to epangello (ἐπαγγέλλω), “to profess,” helps explain why the noun can carry such argumentative weight in these verses. A promise in these contexts is not merely information; it is a professed commitment that creates a fitting response. In 1:4, the response is participation and escape; in 3:13, the response is watchful expectation for a world characterized by righteousness. In both places, ἐπάγγελμα functions as a stabilizing element: it grounds what is granted and what is looked for in something that comes from God and is treated as reliable within the discourse of the letter.

Imagery

Although ἐπάγγελμα itself is an abstract noun, these verses clothe it with vivid outcomes. One passage presents promises as the channel leading away from “corruption that is in the world by lust” toward participation in the “divine nature,” and the other sets the promise against the horizon of “new heavens and a new earth” where “righteousness dwells.” In 2 Peter, a promise is thus portrayed not as a bare statement but as a binding word that stands behind escape from corruption and the expectation of a renewed, righteousness-filled creation.

Sources: Lexical data from Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance and the Translators Brief Lexicon of Extended Strongs for Greek (STEPBible, CC BY). Occurrence data from the Translators Amalgamated Greek New Testament (STEPBible, CC BY). Scripture quotations from the World English Bible (public domain).