Greetings, James.
Your post contains a whole host of questions--almost all questions are worth asking and being answered--and I wonder if you have considered the value of a commentary purchase--there are uncomplicated discussions in many formats, many good teachers out there (along with less valuable ones). Or barring that, of simply going to a site like biblehub.com and using the commentaries (older ones) that are freely accessible there. They really do provide useful engagement verse-by-verse through the text.
That said, rather than trying to parse each one of your questions in long format, I will post below the text of sermon material dealing with the portion of 2Pet that has your present attention. If these words help, then praise the Lord. If they don't resolve at least a few of the questions, then perhaps set forth a follow up post that presents just one or two, so it is not so formidable a barrage of inquiry.
_______________________________________
Two weeks ago, when I last preached God’s word to you, we were just introduced to the letter of 2Pet. So, this morning we truly begin to follow the apostle Peter through his teaching in this epistle. I tried to express the author’s overarching or undergirding theme in the previous title To Know Jesus. It’s Peter’s mission to proclaim the Jesus he knows to the world, to see saving knowledge of him who issued the call spread far and wide, and the fellowship expanded. But his goal is no less to see the those already acquainted with Christ growing in that relationship.
As is true by every other personal relationship in your or any man’s experience: you know someone deeply only by repeated, serious, and interested communion. Jesus right now knows everything about you (not that he doesn’t want to listen to you pray); but you and I do not know our Lord to the same degree. So it is to our immense benefit that his gospel ministers to us. And the more we know of him, the more we are changed into his likeness.
I mentioned near the end of the first message that right away, Peter desires to talk about a few of the “all things” (v3) that have been given to us (believers) by virtue of knowing Christ—the things that pertain to life and godliness. This is a short letter. There’s no possible way to discuss or even mention the whole panoply of our blessedness.
But it is interesting, is it not? that after just a few words to describe Jesus’ Person, his titles and divinity, the apostle invites the believer to consider himself, as the recipient of certain things from the Savior. Certain things that you have in your possession, as a believer (you can’t have them by any other means), further reveal Jesus Christ to you. By analogy, some of you may be wearing a gift this morning, a present from a loved one. Someone may compliment you for the item, but you might reply with words of admiration for the presenter. Such a gift exhibits far more than the beauties of the wearer. They declare the beauties of the giver.
We noted already that the precious faith we have with the apostles has been allotted to us, so the knowledge and even the faculty to recognize it is divine gift. As undeserving (and ill deserving) sinners, we have revealed to us through our enlightenment God’s own“glory and virtue.” This idea we met before in our Ephesians study, 1:18, “the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know… (v19) what is the exceeding greatness of his power toward us who believe… a mighty power.”
So, there’s no higher purpose than God himself for his acts toward us. We ourselves are not the ultimate reason. Children, why did God make you and all things? It is on account of his own glory that God calls and makes believers, the term “glory” standing for his essential being and will or purpose; which is in accord with his own virtue—this is a word meaning “goodness,” “excellence,” or “praise.” In other words, it stands for the sum of God’s character.
Both ideas come together here (and some have suggested reading the descriptions as one idea, “glorious praise” or “praiseworthy glory”). But as one follows the other, we are made to understand that our being brought into this Christian life and godliness reveals the being, will, and character of God. And as soon as those are revealed to us in our salvation, faith responds appropriately by glorifying and praising the God of glory and praise.
First, then, we’ve been given faith and life in salvation, through (not our righteousness, but) the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ; and immediately we are awed by the divine unveiling. “The bride eyes not her garment, but her dear bridegroom’s face.” But also there is this gift of godliness. We receive from our dear crucified Savior the duplex gratia, or the double benefit. He gives us justification and sanctification. Godliness or piety is nothing less than the life of them justified in Christ, drawn from the life and holiness of Christ.
And once again, make no mistake: what changes for the better are wrought within you, and exposed or exhibited from you, are not so much your beauties, but Christ in and upon you by his Holy Spirit. True godliness is born out of the Christian’s renewed disposition, the part of him that is spiritually alive though it is still cumbered by dead flesh of the old man.
The new life draws its energy from Holy Spirit; and that life in turn blesses others by love. The best piety is thoughtless—no, not unconcerned about others, but instinctively or habitually Christlike. Disciples were first called “Christians” by outsiders, who were searching for a fitting appellation for these people who sought to be “like their master,” Mt.10:25.
Here’s what Peter wrote in his first letter, “If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. But let none of you suffer as a murderer or a thief or an evildoer or as a meddler. Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in that name” 1Pet.4:14-16.
Today, there is a constant stream of abuse that comes against Christians and the church on account of the scandal of ungodliness among professors of our religion. And yet, honesty compels even many of those mockers to acknowledge that there is a pattern of grace in the pages of Scripture, and that pattern is reproduced in believers, however imperfectly, often in surprising and touching ways. And certainly in no better way than in our death, 2Cor.4:10-12.
Today, in our land, it isn’t obviously costly to be a Christian, also many Christlike qualities have imprinted themselves on our whole culture, after nearly two-thousand years of contact, making some aspects of the faith seem commonplace. And the converse is also true: its isn’t obviously costly to be an ungodly professor. Many notorious sinners sit in the pews, and even in the government of various churches. No sin is named, no repentance is urged. And still for all that, godliness still makes a recognizable impact for Christ on those with eyes to see and ears to hear.
Peter describes various components of godliness in vv5-7. Those descriptions are reminiscent of the “fruit of the Spirit,” and we paused in our Galatians study about a year-and-a-half ago to look one-at-a-time at each part. We won’t do that again with 2Pet., but next message we will look at that chain of traits, as they contribute to growth in grace and knowledge of Christ.
So, the gift of the faith we implement is a revelation of God in Christ; and the gift of our piety reveals God in Christ. Thirdly, we see him here giving to us who believe in him “exceedingly great and precious promises.” There are several ways by which we should grasp the import of this gift. First of all, there are all the OT promises that were given to God’s people. Peter excludes none of the sure words of promise which are part of God’s revelation, and the true property of his servants, both old and new.
“In him (that is Christ),” writes Paul, “all the promises of God find their Yes, and in him Amen, to the glory of God” 2Cor.1:20. Therefore, it is appropriate to be completely satisfied in our Savior and God, in the perfect Mediator, the one true and faithful Israelite, who receives the whole blessed inheritance, at the expense of his unfaithful brother. Everything that the OT foresignified in types and shadows finds its realization in the risen, glorious, conquering Christ.
But to those promises we should add anything and everything that was promised or clarified through his own person (in the four Gospels) and in the rest of the NT. All the promises God the Father makes are still to his Son, but also through him to us. It was not only that he, as the last and only faithful Israelite, could appropriate all the OT promises for his own exclusive use. Through union with him, those promises are transmitted to us.
But also the Apostles who look back upon his historic cross and resurrection, also convey to us by direct declaration the substance of new most precious and exceedingly great promises. They come from Christ, who is both risen from the dead and exalted on high. They have to do with the application of our Lord’s redemption to us, 1) when we first believed, 2) throughout our earthly lives, and 3) unto glory and welcome in the presence of God, when we finally leave sin behind in this world that is passing away. “We rejoice in hope of the glory of God” Rom.5:2.
Peter captures something of this in his sermon on Pentecost Sunday, in which he encouraged his hearers who were cut to the heart with grief and guilt for having put their Messiah to death, by telling them,“Repent and be baptized in Jesus name for the remission of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit,” Act.2:38. And you may recall that he began that sermon with a reference to the OT promise of the sending of the Spirit, Joel 2. Peter rebroadcasts the promise for believers in Jesus, yes even if those same had lifted up their hands and voices against him.
He repeats the great promise to Abraham, Gen.17, in the same way, Act.2:39, “For the promise is to you, and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call.” The promise that had narrowed down to One Man, Jesus of Nazareth, from him explodes outward in an ever expanding call of mercy. And we can think of the concussive wave traveling outward as the mighty wind of the Holy Spirit, blowing where he will, himself being the principal gift for the church, brought on the scene by the glory and virtue of God.
It is by Holy Spirit and through all his works in believers (from effectual calling and regeneration, to sanctification and glorification) that “you may be (or become) partakers of (or communers with, fellowshipers in) the divine nature. This verse is widely misapplied, perhaps worst by those who think it teaches that men become deity or lesser deities by this communion.
Now then, though you partake of a piece of bread at dinner, and take its nature into yourself, do you therefore become essentially a piece of bread? Nonsense. But, by partaking of bread nature, you take its nourishment into yourself, and what it can add to you it does add. So Calvin is able to say judiciously, “It is the purpose of the gospel to make us sooner or later like God; indeed it is, so to speak, a kind of deification.” But only so far as a creature may imitate.
A spiritual transformation is being carried out by God upon his believers, as they come to know him. Where life is at work in us, we escape the corruption/decay that belongs to the world. The festering rot offends us now, not because it was unfamiliar, but because we see the contrast. Lust/craving was our life, IS the so-called-life of unbelief. In Christ you died to such “living.”
________________________________________
Our apostle is writing to us, to encourage us in our Christian faith. At the hour of this letter, he is facing the prospect of his own bodily death very soon. But rather than concentrating his mind on preparing for the executioner, Peter is concerned for the preparations that we should be making.
Peter has been preparing for this “exodus” (he calls it) for more than three decades, ever since his newly-opened eyes began to understand, post-resurrection in a truly profound way, the divine nature of his Lord Jesus Christ. The experiences of three years walking through Galilee and Judea with Jesus took on all new color, in light of the saving death of Christ.
Yet, after only forty days, the Son of God departed bodily for heaven; but he promised Peter that eventually they would be reunited, as Peter would follow his Lord out of this world in due time. Still, Peter’s knowledge of Jesus only increased, it didn’t decrease, in the intervening years. Such is the Christian life—it is a life of knowing Jesus. It is a life of preparing to meet Jesus, that we might be comfortably close to him in his embodied estate, though we will (for a while) remain disembodied, in heaven awaiting our own resurrection.
If you are ever in the position of knowing (or at least making an informed estimate as to) the day of your death, closer or further away you may feel a special need to prepare yourself for that moment. It might be more surprising if you never felt any need right up to the event. But what I’m proposing to you this morning is that all along your daily life—even while your youthful body surges with strength, or your doctor has given your elderly body a clean bill of health—that you are now, today preparing for death.
Encouragement in your Christian faith is an encouragement to life—eternal life. But there’s only one way to enter into that life, which is by dying. You need to say with Paul, “I die everyday!” 1Cor.15:31. You should be reckoning yourselves dead, as to the flesh, having had the old man crucified with Christ. So that the life you now live in the body is a life of faith.
It ought to be Christ coming to life in the Christian that our present existence exemplifies. For the more we know of our God and Savior Jesus Christ, the more his knowledge becomes the operating principle of our lives. My old “operating system” is being completely rewritten. Go ahead and think of this transformation happening along the lines of what happens to a computer when new data is sent to it by programmers. For some aspects of new installation work can continue without apparent interruption. But for more significant changes, a reboot is necessary.
Our massive “reconfiguration” will come about when this body shuts down in physical death. But meanwhile, changes are already at work in us. The old life has been sidelined; it hasn’t been thoroughly purged yet; and as long as we are breathing this air it won’t be. And we will often try to run that old programming according to our old sinful inclinations, with results that are never satisfying. Because the two sets of instructions are at odds.
Peter, with death looming closer to him than ever, has some counsel for us. It is counsel that has eternal value, because it has both life and death in view. Peter calls us to participation in the new work being done to us by Christ. Now, we do not seize his grace or his promise; such has been given, bestowed on his people; all we can do is receive from him what he is pleased to give. He didn’t ask our permission.
But, we should engage with the gift that has been given to us, even the “all things” (v3) pertaining to life and godliness.” Last week we took note of the promises of God, all ultimately centered on Christ, both OT and NT, all which have been transmitted to us through our union with him. We engage with the Word of God, and we penetrate its mysteries so that they are no longer mysterious but revelational of God in Christ. Through the Word preached, read, studied, and believed, we escape the corruption, the rot and ruin that is the nature of this dying age.
We escape the corruption that belongs to this world, but we can achieve this only by dying to the lusts for the world that are situated in our flesh, lodged in our members, Rom.7:23. So, Peter says v5, “for this very reason,” that is, because you are leaving this world, because by dying you will leave death behind forever, then “give all diligence” to this matter of adding new functions, new modules to your new life of faith.
I was having a discussion the other day in which I said that I cannot see the advantage to having a “smart-phone.” My phone’s functionality is pretty much limited to making audible and verbal contact with people who are not close by for conversation. And that seems like fulfillment to me. What more could I want? But in the back of my mind, I can recall another conversation, in which I was told that having once taken the step to the new level of functionality of a smart-phone, one cannot but wonder how he ever got along so well without the new convenience.
That illustration, it seems to me, captures the essence of what is available to the Christian by the gift of life and godliness allotted him by God. Do you want to know how to prepare for death? How to die to the world, long before death of the body catches up to you? Here’s how: add to your faith virtue, and knowledge, and self-control, and perseverance, and godliness, and brotherly kindness, and love, and… well, that should keep you busy.
I want to turn each one of those over a couple times, just for completeness sake. But before I do that, go back to v5, and really consider two items. 1st) the basic exhortation: “give all diligence.” On the one hand, I’ve been at pains to emphasize just how useless are your efforts at obtaining God’s gift. Just as ordinary computer users cannot compel the far-away programmers to supply them with what they want, but are pretty much at the mercy of the wizards; so too we Christians just receive what God supplies.
But, on the other hand, here’s Peter basically saying to those who have received and are receiving divine grace and peace and all that is included in his gift: “Make it your all consuming passion, your principal labor, sacrifice energy from other pursuits (even important ones) and maximize the attention given to this business of addition.” The difference I’m pointing to is the difference between trying to add something of spiritual value to yourself that you haven’t been given (which is a complete waste of your effort); and opening up your gift, trying out and exercising the things that even now are yours, and abounding! Provided you use it!
Both the passive reception of, and the active participation in, are essential to blessing by the gift. The first begets the second. The vital thing is never to mistake either your diligence or your addition for the pure divine prerogative from the beginning. Let me state further that your will “diligently to add” is itself energized purely by his divine glory and virtue. But it has not ceased to be your will, on account of him. So it’s no contradiction urging you to be stirred to act.
The 2nd) item to attend in v5 is the element of engagement, the starting point at which the add-ons are added on: namely “faith.” Always, it is critical to remember that Christian faith has both a subjective and objective reference. Believing (or having faith) is a spiritual faculty that must be granted (brought to life) by God. And what makes it living faith is the life of its object, the content of Christianity, that is to say knowledge of Christ. The faculty for faith looks away from self to the object of faith outside of him, even Christ; and knowledge of him thus fills the believer, which knowledge we call the faith, which faith is mine by possession.
So, Peter says “add to your faith (the faculty with its content) virtue.” As with Paul’s list of the fruit of the Spirit (Gal.5:22f, which has some different terms, and different order) I do not think Peter intends us to think strictly in terms of “progression” from one of these qualities to the next, as if faith began, and love caps off a “well-developed” Christian. Can you imagine finally getting to love, and thinking “OK, I’ve mastered the others; now once I’ve got this one down, I’m ready to die?”
We should seek improvement in all these areas, because we are going to die, and these fruits of Christ’s life in us will help us to die well—both daily, and at the end of our respective races. Do not neglect any of these “apps,” these applications of grace. “Virtue” first mentioned is the same word as in v3, where it referred to God’s divine goodness, the sum of his character. Hence, we should conclude Peter has in mind a similar idea in v5, namely that to Christian faith should be added holy character, goodness that originates in righteousness as God defines it, and which for that reason has his approval.
Then, to moral excellence add knowledge (again, not pausing until you have sufficiency of the former). Besides which, some knowledge was essential to the formation of saving faith at the start. Here, the commentators seem united in treating this knowledge as applied to life’s conditions in this decaying world. “Prudence,” in contrast to new awareness or enlightenment.
To knowledge, add self control, v6. Here we are at the core of a man, the grace of God reaching down to the fibers of his being, and giving him mastery over himself. But mastery that is in everything subject to the faith that is in Christ, so that he is a holy and useful servant. Next perseverance is added, sometimes translated “patience.” The idea here is consistency, constancy. As someone once described it, “a long obedience.” Not merely “sticking to your guns.”
Don’t neglect to add “godliness.” This is the very soul of true religion. Divine power enters our lives for nothing less than that we will have “life and godliness,” or piety. You hear people mock those who they call “holier than thou,” when they never observed this hypocrisy—they only assumed it. You must abhor hypocrisy, while craving godliness, a holy life!
V7 continues, add brotherly kindness to your gains. The emphasis here is on the obvious ties that bind our affections to affinity. In other words, who-you-are and what-you-think has a natural outlet toward the church. And not only to the church, but to all, as in the end you also must add “love,” from the heart, as a function of your will. The engagement of the will is the true essence of “agape” love. V8, "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." No one knows better than Peter that these are not only a way of life, but also of dying daily, and will be perfected in him by his death. Amen, so let it be!
______________________________________
I have more messages in the series, but perhaps the above may help answer some or all of the questions you have.
