Abundant Christianity
“To them that
have obtained like precious faith with us through the righteousness of God and
our Savior Jesus Christ: Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge
of God, and of Jesus our Lord, According as his divine power hath given unto us
all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him
that hath called us to glory and virtue: whereby are given unto us exceeding
great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine
nature, having escaped the corruption of the world through lust. And besides
this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge;
and to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience
godliness; and to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness
charity. For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall
neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.” 2 Peter 1:1b-8
Everything Is In Christ.
We do not need
to look anywhere else but to Christ Jesus, for everything has been given to us
in Him for life and godliness. vs. 3. These precious promises come to us
through the knowledge of Jesus Christ. This is extremely important, for every
device that Satan uses is for the purpose of drawing us off from Christ, to
seek blessings somewhere else.
The Key Is Faith.
It is to faith
that all the other things must be added. It is not adding in the proper sense,
for faith includes all of these things, and they grow out from faith. Faith is
the principle that drives the whole Christian life, for without faith it is
impossible to please God, and it is by faith that the just live. The word
"add" means to “supply abundantly”; to draw out from faith all things
that are promised to us. Paul says a similar thing to Philemon, “That the
communication of thy faith may become effectual by the acknowledging of every
good thing which is in you in Christ Jesus.” (vs. 6).
Not a Ladder.
The things to be
supplied to (added to; drawn from) faith are not to be thought of as rungs that
are added to a ladder in order to rise higher. Rather, virtue is drawn from
faith and completes faith. There can be no virtue without faith, and faith is
useless and dead without virtue. So it is with all the other things listed.
Patience grows out of temperance, and patience completes temperance. Without
temperance there can be no patience, and without patience temperance is a useless
concept. Neither must we climb up one
rung in order to reach another. We do not have to have perfect faith before we
can add virtue; neither must we perfect knowledge in order to add patience.
What is
described is the full Christian character; the beautiful nature of Christ that
we partake of through the precious promises that are given to us. The new
creation is an organism, where all the parts depend upon one another, complete
one another, and complement one another. This is the New Man in Jesus Christ.
Add Virtue to Faith.
“Virtue” means
manliness, in a generic sense: manliness in distinction from animals, not
distinguished from woman. A virtuous person is one who has become truly human.
Man was created to love God and to live for God's glory. The virtuous man lives
according to the commandments of God, not as the beasts of the field. Without
faith, none of our good works are accepted by God, but without the good works
of virtue, faith is not true faith but is dead and useless, according to James.
True faith always leads the child of God to obedience, so he finds his true
humanity as the creature God made him to be.
Add Knowledge to Virtue.
Moral sense
without knowledge can be deadly. In this century we have seen the
destructiveness of people who fancied themselves as those destined by history
to bring in a more just society. The horrors of revolution swept over land
after land. Why? for justice, brotherhood, and equality. How superior the
communists and their sympathizers were. Just as Robespierre, the mastermind of
the bloody French Revolution, was known as the “Voice of Virtue,” so modern
revolutionaries attach themselves to some high and noble cause, and in the name
of that cause spread destruction and misery around them.
Very often young
Christians, enflamed with a desire to be obedient to Christ, neglect knowledge,
and their virtue becomes lawless and destructive. It takes knowledge to
correctly identify what is God's will and to distinguish between gnats and
camels.
But there can be
no true knowledge without obedience (virtue). Only Christ's true disciples know
the truth that makes them free (John 8:31,32). But it takes knowledge to
complete and perfect virtue. In terms of this the Heidelberg Catechism (Q. 91)
reads:
Q. What are good
works?
A. Those only
which proceed from true faith, and are done according to the Law of God, and
His glory; and not such as rest on our own opinion or the commandments of men.
Add Temperance to Knowledge.
There are few
things worse than knowledge run amok. Temperance literally means “power
within,” or self-control. Temperance is the governor on the engine of knowledge
that keeps it from becoming destructive.
“Knowledge puffs up,” the apostle said. Temperance enables us to see
what is important, and what is not important. It brings things into proportion.
The intemperate man strains at gnats and swallows camels. He is very concerned
about the mote in his neighbor's eye, but unconcerned about the beam in his.
There are many intoxicants far more deadly than drugs and alcohol.
Pride is one of
the most deadly intoxicants, for it distorts our view of ourselves and of
others. Temperance, or self-control, enables me to rightly evaluate myself, so
that I am not puffed up by what I think I know; and to rightly evaluate the
gifts and virtues of others. It enables
me to think clearly and soberly; so that I do not think more highly of myself
than I ought; and so that I esteem other better than myself.
Knowledge is the
true foundation of temperance, for true self-knowledge, the true knowledge of
God, and the true knowledge of my neighbor are basic to any idea of
self-control. Without soberness (temperance), knowledge runs amok; vainglorious
men and women, puffed up in their self- intoxication, spread misery, shame, and
ruin about them. Temperance gives us balance, avoiding extremes. The drunken
man weeps over nothings, is angry at trifles, and sleeps it off in the gutter.
The sober man knows when to weep, when to get angry, and knows that it is a
shame to sleep in the gutter.
Add Patience to Self-Control
Temporary
self-control is useless. What good does it do to control my temper for one hour
if I lose it the next and play the fool? What good does it do to refrain from
drunkenness for one year, if I spend the next year in jail for drunken driving?
What is one day or one hour of self-control worth?
“Patience” means
continuing on in well-doing. It means not quitting, not giving up, not laying
down on the job. It means “endurance,” not giving up when the going gets tough.
The word means “staying under,” remaining at the post of duty, under the
authority of the Lord.
I have often
said that “It is not how a man starts out that counts; it is how he ends up.”
That is true to a point; for what good is a seed that does not produce a plant?
If there is no life in the seed, it is useless. So it is with faith, which is
dead without works. But true faith is not dead, and good things come from true
faith, because Christ is not dead. So the statement about ending up is only
partly right. If a person begins with true faith, he will end up all right, for
it is through faith that the righteous man lives.
Without
self-control (temperance) no patience ever comes. Note the progress: Faith is
perfected by virtue, which is perfected by knowledge, which is perfected by
temperance, which is perfected by patience. But patience grows out of
temperance, which grows out of knowledge, which grows out of virtue, which
grows out of faith. Everything is included in faith in Jesus Christ, just as
the tree is in the acorn and the adult is in the child.
Add Godliness to Patience.
Without
godliness, patience is just stubbornness and pig-headedness. There must be a
purpose and goal for our endurance. We are not to endure, just for endurance
sake. Jim Jones and his followers in Guiana drank the kool-aid, toughed it out,
and died. They were not noble.
Patience does
not mean we never change our ideas, nor change our behavior. The glory of God and
the kingdom of God must always be the goal of faith and the goal of the
Christian. Godliness will require you to change your sinful ideas and your
sinful practices and attitudes. Stubbornness is no virtue.
“Godliness”
means “good reverence,” and has to do with the duties of religion. Without
godliness, patience is just toughing it out; it becomes an end in itself;
self-affirmation and pride. Sometimes being tough and standing firm is just
“showing off.”
So patience is
perfected by godliness. But many people never reach godliness because they give
up too soon. “If ye continue in my
word, then are ye my disciples indeed,” Jesus said, “And ye shall know the
truth, and the truth shall make you free.” Do you think that it is a simple
matter to know the will of God? The testimony of all the saints refutes that
idea. Neither does the will of God come to you in a flash of intuition: “Ask,
and it shall be given; seek and ye shall find....” “Search as for hid
treasures.” Is knowing God a light and frivolous matter?
The road to
heaven if often a long and difficult one and only those with true faith can
make the journey. But the journey, though difficult, has a definite goal in
view. The Christian is not like the mountain climber who climbs “just because
it is there.” We do not endure hardship, just because we love to be troubled.
True patience endures for the glory of God, and for the truth of the Gospel. So
Godliness is the fruit of patience, but the necessary perfection of patience.
Add Brotherly Kindness to Godliness.
Without
brotherly kindness, godliness can be a very deadly thing. “If a man say, I love
God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother
whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? and this commandment
have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also” (I John 4:20,
21). Unless godliness is perfected by
brotherly kindness, our religion is just an abstraction and a flutter in the
head. It is not true that people can
love God and not stand people. We are to be kind to each other, to bear one
another's burdens, to guard against wickedness.
How many
injuries have been done to God's people in the name of “godliness”! Lying,
slander, evil-speaking, betrayal, etc. Often the most unloving actions and
words are excused by a form of godliness.
But godliness must precede brotherly love, for without godliness,
brotherly love becomes sentimental and sloppy and may do more harm than good.
But without brotherly love to perfect godliness, it becomes perverted, narrow,
and judgmental. We betray one another in the name of God. Some have committed
all manner of sins and crimes in the name of God. Some even have slaughtered
the saints, thinking that they did God service.
Add Charity to Brotherly Love.
Charity is the
highest form of love. There are other kinds of love. Sexual love and human love
see something desirable in the object of love and pursue that object for the
desirable trait. In other words, the lover expects to receive some benefit from
the object of love.
But charity (as
described in I Cor. 13) is the kind of love that God had toward his people
"in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." Charity does
not require a benefit from the object of love.
Other kinds of love say more about what is loved than who loves. A
beautiful girl may be the object of sexual love for a depraved man. Not so with
divine love. Because this love is not merited but comes simply as grace, such
love says far more about the person who loves than the person who is loved.
God's love was
commended toward us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us. That
says nothing about us, but a great deal about God. Other loves have their
source in the object; this love has its source in the subject.
This Charity
kind of love rests upon brotherly love. Communion and covenant is the
foundation of this love, for you cannot discover this love by yourself. It has
never been known by the isolated and cut-off professing Christian, for it is
antithetical to such Christianity.
But brotherly
love needs this kind of love to complete and perfect it. Without charity,
brotherly love becomes cliquish, sectarian, more and more restricted, as we
associate more and more with our friends and think only of the people we like.
Charity for all men perfects my love for the saints. Charity teaches me to do
good to all, especially those of the household of faith. Charity teaches me to
pray for all men, not only for those who love me, but also for my enemies.
Charity teaches even slaves to be subject to their masters with all fear, not
only to the good and gentle, but also to the froward (1 Peter 2:18).
One Final Word.
There is not one
word in this passage about money, health, fame, or “ministries.” Evidently the value
system of the Holy Spirit is in conflict with much of modern values. When the
saints go marching in, how much of our valued treasures will prove to be wood,
hay, and stubble? The inner man that we so much neglect, the Holy Spirit values
a great deal.
The true reward
is in verse 11: “for so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly
into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”
“Ministered” is the same word as “add” in verse 5. If we abundantly supply our faith, then we will be abundantly
supplied in the everlasting kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ. What more is
there?
Write
Pastor C. W. Powell
Trinity Covenant Church RCUS
6050 Del Paz Drive
Colorado Springs, CO 80918
719-590-1400
