“Perseverance, Part 4”
Posted: Sat Mar 22, 2025 6:18 pm
“Perseverance, Part 4” by Romans
We are continuing in our current Series, "Perseverance," which, as I have been saying throughout this Series, is a feature of Christianity that I think needs to be more emphasized than it is. As Christians, we should not view our membership in the Family and Kingdom of God in the same way that we view a lifetime membership in a Health Club where we can still be regarded as members in good standing even if we never darken their door after signing on the dotted line. This is not what being a Christian is all about.
The Apostle Peter addressed our need as Christians to persevere in a rather long Scriptural passage. I am going to include his introduction to our need to persevere because of how he introduces it. In the very openingof his second epistle, Peter wrote the following, "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 that is in the world through lust. And beside 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. But he that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins. Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure: for if ye do these things, ye shall never fall (2 Peter 1:3-10).
The Expositor’s Bible says of this: “2 Peter 1:5-11: WHO SHALL ASCEND INTO THE HILL OF THE LORD? The Apostle has just set forth in all their fullness the riches of Divine grace: the precious faith, followed by the bestowal of all helps toward life and godliness, and with the large promises of God to rely on for the future, promises whereby those who seek to renounce the things which are not of the Father, but of the world, may become partakers of the Divine nature. These blessings are assured, are in store, but only for those who manifest a desire to receive them.
How this desire shall be shown, how it shall constantly grow stronger and be ever fulfilling, until it attain perfect fruition in Christ’s eternal kingdom, is the next instruction. "Yea, and for this very cause adding on your part all diligence, in your faith supply virtue." The plenteousness of the Divine bounty is proclaimed that it may evoke an earnest response from all who receive it.
What shall I render unto the Lord for all the benefits which He hath done, and is doing, unto me? is to be the heart’s cry of the feeblest of God’s saints. For the boundless Ocean of grace asks that there should be mingled with it some drops of human duty. God will heal the bite of the serpents in the wilderness, but to gain the blessing the wounded ones, even in their suffering, must turn their eyes to the appointed symbol of healing.
Christ’s power will cure ten lepers, but He first sends them away to do their little in the path of obedience: "Go, show yourselves to the priest." Thus the Apostle’s exhortation here, "Adding on your part all diligence." The diligence of which he speaks is that sort of endeavor which springs from a sense of duty: an earnest zeal and will to accomplish whatever it finds to do; that does not linger till some great work offers, but hastens to labor in the immediate present.
This is the spirit in which Christian advance will be made. And the lines on which such progress will go he now describes as though each new step were evolved from, and were a natural development of, that which preceded it. The faith which the Christian holds fast is the gift of God, and it contains the germs of every grace that can follow. These the believer is to foster with diligence.
St. Peter begins his scale of graces thus: "In your faith supply virtue." Here virtue means the best development of such power as a man possesses. It may be little or great, but in its kind it is to be made excellent. And here it is that the Christian workers in every sphere must surpass others.
They work from a higher motive. What they do is a constant attestation of their faith, is done as in God’s sight, and in the confidence that in every act it is possible to give Him glory. There can be no carelessness in such lives, for they are filled with a sense of responsibility, which is the first fruit of a living faith.
And in St. Peter’s figurative word the believer is said to supply each grace in turn because he contributes by his careful walk to wake it into life, to make it active, and let it shine as a light before men. "And in your virtue knowledge," he continues. For, with duty rightly done, there comes illumination over the path of life: men understand more of God’s dealings, and hence bring their lives into closer harmony with His will.
And we have Christ’s own assurance, "If any man willeth to do His will, he shall know of the teaching". (Joh_7:17) And the same is true not only of the Lord’s own lessons, but of all the promptings of the Spirit in men’s hearts. If they hearken to the voice which whispers, "This is the way," it will become at every stage plainer, and there will be shown to them not only the how, but the wherefore.
"And in your knowledge temperance." There is a knowledge which puffeth up, giving not humility, which is the fruit of true knowledge, but self-conceit. Of the evil effects thereof the Apostle knew much. Out of it grew extravagance in thought, and word, and action; and its mischief was threatening the infant Churches. Against it the temperance which he commends is to be the safeguard, and it is a virtue which can be manifested in all things.
He who possesses it has conquered himself, and has won his way thus to stability of mind and consistency of conduct. "His heart is fixed, trusting in the Lord," and so he can go forward to the Apostle’s next stage of the heavenward journey: "And in your temperance patience." This is the true sequence of spiritual self-control. Life is sure to supply for the godly man trials in abundance. But he is daily striving to die unto the world.
The effort fixes his mind firmly on the Divine purposes, and lifts him above the circumstances of time. He is a pilgrim and sojourner amidst them, but is in no bondage to them, nor will he be moved, even by great afflictions, to waver in his trust. He can look on, as seeing Him that is invisible, and can persevere without being unduly cast down.
"And in your patience godliness." The mystery of godliness-that is, Godlikeness-was made known by the Incarnation. The Son of God became man, that men might through Him be made sons of God. And godliness in the present world is Christ made manifest in the lives of His servants. Toward this imitation of Christ the believer will aspire through his patience.
He takes up the cross and bears it after his Master, and thus begins his discipleship, of which the communion with Christ waxes more intimate day by day. Such was the godliness of St. Paul. It was because he had followed the Lord in all that He would have him to do that the Apostle was bold to exhort the Corinthians, "Be ye imitators of me"; but he adds at once, "as I am of Christ" (1 Corinthians_11:1).
And when he sends Timothy to recall his teaching to their minds he says, "He shall put you in remembrance of my ways which are in Christ." By such a walk with Christ His servants are helped forward towards the fulfillment of the two tables of the moral law, to which St. Peter alludes in his next words: "And in your godliness love of the brethren; and in your love of the brethren love."
The last-named love (αγαπη) is that highest love, the love of God to men, which is set up as the grand ideal towards which His servants are constantly to press forward; but from this the love of the brethren cannot be severed; nay, it must be made the stepping-stone unto it. For, as another Apostle says, "he that loveth not his brother, whom he hath seen, cannot love God, whom he hath not seen" (1 John_4:20).
But love of the brethren is not to be narrowed, in the verse before us, or elsewhere, to love of those who are already known to the Churches as brethren in the Lord. The Gospel of Christ knows no such limits. The commission of the Master was, "Go ye forth into all the world." All mankind are to be won for Him; all are embraced in the name of brethren. For if they be not so now, it is our bounden duty to endeavor that they shall be so.
And in thus interpreting we have the mind of Christ with us, who came to seek and to save them that were lost, to die for the sins of the whole world, and who found His brethren among every class who would hear His words and obey them. We have with us, too, the acts of God Himself, who would have all men come to the knowledge of the truth, and who, with impartial love, maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth His rain upon the just and the unjust, that thus even the evil and unjust may be won to own His Fatherhood.
Such Divine love is the end of the commandment, (1Ti_1:5) and terminates the list of those graces the steps whereto St. Paul has more briefly indicated when he says the love which is most like God’s springs from a pure heart, a good conscience, and faith unfeigned. In this way shall men be borne upward into the hill of the Lord.
The knowledge of Christ is a lesson in which we cannot be perfected till we behold Him as He is, but yet through it from the first we receive the earnest and pledge of all that is meant by life and godliness, and the culture of the Divine gifts, will yield a rich increase of the same knowledge. "For if these things are yours and abound, they make you to be not idle nor unfruitful unto the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ."
Men in this life can draw nearer unto this full knowledge, and the bliss of each new gain prompts to more zealous exertion. There can be no relaxation of effort, no remissness, in such a quest. For hope is fostered by the constant experience of a deepening knowledge, and receives continual pledges that the glory to be revealed is far above what is already known.
The enlightened vision grows wider and ampler; and the path, which began in faith, shineth more and more unto the perfect day. The world offers other lights to its votaries, but they lead only into darkness. "For he that lacketh these things is blind, seeing only what is near, having forgotten the cleansing from his old sins."
He who has taken no heed to foster within him the light which is kindled by faith, and which can only be kept alive by the grace of the Divine Spirit, is blind-yea, blind indeed, for he is self-blinded. He has quenched the inward light which was of God’s free gift, and made the light within him to be darkness, a darkness, like Egypt’s, which may be felt.
Such a man has no insight into the glories of the celestial vision, no joy of the widening prospect which captivates the gaze of the spiritual man. He can see only things close at hand, and is as one bowed downward to the earth, groping a dreary way, with neither hope nor exaltation at the end.
For he has forgotten-nay, St. Peter’s words are stronger and very striking-ληθην λαβων-he has taken hold upon forgetfulness, made a deliberate choice of that course which obliterates all remembrance of God’s initial gift of grace to cleanse him from his old sins. Unmindful of this purification, he has admitted into the dwelling where the Spirit of God would have made a home other spirits more wicked than those first cast out.
They have entered in, and dwell there. There is a marked contrast between this expression and the word used for God’s gift of faith (2 Peter 1:1). That a man receives (λαχων) as the bounty of his Lord’s love; and if treasured and used, it proves itself the light of life for this world and the next. The wrong path he chooses for himself (λαβων), and its close is the blackness of the dark.
"Wherefore, brethren, give the more diligence to make your calling and election sure." "Wherefore, brethren"-because such terrible blindness as this has fallen upon some, who left their first grace unimproved and allowed even the memory of it to fade away. Do you give the more diligence in your religious life? The true way to banish evil is to multiply good, leaving neither room nor time for bad things to spread themselves.
When the peril of such things is round about you, it is no time for relaxed effort. Your enemy never relaxes his. He is always active, seeking whom he may devour, and employs not the day only, but the night, when men sleep, to sow his tares. Let him find you ever watchful, ever diligent to hold fast and make abundant the gifts which God has already bestowed upon you.
In the foreknowledge of the Father, you are elect from the foundation of the world; and your call is attested by the injunction laid upon you, "Ye shall be holy, for I am holy." Your inheritance is in store where nothing can assail it. God only asks that you should manifest a wish, a longing, for His blessings; and He will pour them richly upon you. He has made you of a loftier mould than the inanimate and irrational creation.
The flower turns to the sun by a law which it cannot resist. From the Sun of righteousness men can turn away. But the Father’s will is that your eyes should be set on the hope which He offers. Then of a certainty it will be realized. Lift up your eyes to the eternal hills, for from thence your help will come. The promise is sure. Strive to keep your hope equally steadfast.
For now you belong to the household of Christ; now you are through Him children of the heavenly Father; to this sonship you are elect and have been called, and to it you shall attain if you hold fast your boldness and the glorying of your hope unto the end. "For if ye do these things, ye shall never stumble." The way will be hard, and may be long, the obstacles in your path many and rugged, heaped up by the prince of this world to bar you from advancing and make you fainthearted; but down into there a ray which shall illumine the darkness and make clear for you the steps in which you ought to tread, and the rod and staff of God’s might will support and comfort you.
"For thus shall be richly supplied unto you the entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ." In his first words in this passage the Apostle exhorted the believers to supply something, as it were, of their own towards their spiritual advancement; but when the demand was fully understood, behold God had made ready the means for doing everything which was asked for!
Within the precious faith which He bestowed was enfolded the potentiality of every other grace. There they lay, as seeds in a seed-plot. All that men were bidden to do was to give them culture. Then God’s Spirit would operate as the generous sunshine, and cause each hidden power to unfold itself in its time and bloom into beauty and strength. In this verse the Divine assistance is more clearly promised.
What men bestow shall be returned unto them manifold. Do your diligence, says the Apostle, and there shall be supplied unto you from the rich stores of God all that can help you forward in your heavenward journey. The kingdom of God shall begin for you while you are passing through this present life. For it can be set up within you.
It has been prepared from all eternity in heaven, and will be enjoyed in full fruition when this life is ended. But it is a state, and not a place. The entrance thereto is opened here. The believer is beckoned into it; and with enraptured soul he enjoys through faith a foretaste of the things which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor heart of man conceived, the things which God has prepared for them that love Him. Over those joys Christ is King, but He is also the door; and those who enter through Him shall go in and out, and shall surely find pasture, even life for evermore.”
The Sermon Bible adds to this: “Christian Growth. The word in the text which has been translated in our version "add" is a very pictorial term, and refers to a choir of well-trained musicians, such as Heman or Asaph led in the days of David and Solomon;
and the idea which it implies is that as the different instruments of the great orchestral concert of the Jewish service blended together and produced a noble and harmonious outburst of praise to Jehovah, as the singers and the musicians each performed his special part, and all combined in one perfect unison of sound, so the growth of the Christian character should be accomplished by the harmonious development of each moral quality...
and the Christian life, composed of so many different elements, should be one continuous hymn of praise to Him who is our song and our salvation. There are two ways in which we may add to our faith all the graces which the Apostle enumerates. We may add them as a builder adds stone to stone in his wall, or we may add them as a plant adds cell to cell in its structure.
Both these modes of increase are used separately or in combination in Scripture to illustrate Christian growth. We are said to be rooted and grounded in love, and to grow into a holy temple in the Lord. We are rooted as plants in the Divine life, deriving our nourishment and stability from it; we are grounded as living stones on the precious Corner-stone; the double image expressing in combination the active and passive sides of Christian faith.
And so likewise the combination of ideas borrowed from plant-life and from architecture to express the growth of Christian life unto a holy temple in the Lord denotes the two modes in which growth is made: by active exertion and passive trusting; by being fellow-workers with God, working out our own salvation, while we realise that it is God that worketh in us both to will and to do of His good pleasure. We have not only to rest, after the manner of a building, on the finished work of Christ, but we have to draw, after the manner of a plant, out of God’s fulness, grace for grace.
I. The first thing that we are commanded by the Apostle to "add" to our faith is virtue, meaning by this term vigour, manliness. In our faith we are to manifest this quality. Our faith is to be itself a source of power to us. We are to be strong in faith. It is to be to us the power of God unto salvation, enabling us to overcome the temptations and evils of the world and to rise above all the infirmities of our own nature. It is not enough that the Christian character should be beautiful: it should also be strong.
Strength and beauty should be the characteristics not only of God’s house, but also of God’s people. But how often is the quality of strength absent from piety! Piety in the estimation of the world is synonymous with weakness and effeminacy. The world is apt to think that it is only weaklings who are pious—persons who have neither strong intellects, nor strong affections, nor strong characters.
Young men are too apt to be ashamed of confessing Christ openly before men, under the fear that they should be regarded as something between milksops and hypocrites. And too many professing Christians are confessedly "feeble folk." It is most necessary, therefore, that we should add to our faith courage, manliness. Our faith should be manifested, as it was in olden times, by a victorious strength which is able to overcome the world, which fears the Lord and knows no other fear.
II. To this strength or manliness we are further commanded to "add" knowledge. In our manliness we are to seek after knowledge. The quality of courage is to be shown by the fearlessness of our researches into all the works and ways of God. We are not to be deterred by any dread of consequences from investigating and finding out the whole truth. The Bible places no restrictions upon an inquiring spirit.
It does not prevent men from examining and proving all things, and bringing even the most sacred subjects to the test of reason. God says to us in regard to the holiest things, "Come and let us reason together." He has given to us the faculties by means of which we may find out truth and store up knowledge; and He wishes us to exercise these faculties freely in every department of His works.
III. But further the Apostle enjoins us to add to our knowledge temperance. This had originally a wider meaning, and covered a larger breadth of character. It meant sober-mindedness, a chastened temper and habit of the soul—a wise self-control by which the higher powers kept the lower well in hand and restrained them from excesses of all kinds.
And this sober-mindedness, which expresses better than any other single word the true temper of the Christian in this world, is an indispensable adjunct to the Christian character. With wonderful sagacity, the Apostle commands us to add to our knowledge temperance; for there is a tendency in knowledge to puff us up and fill our hearts with pride.
IV. To this self-government we must add patience. Our self-government itself is to be an exercise of patience. In our temperance we are to be patient, not giving way to a hasty temper or a restless disposition. As the plant slowly ripens its fruit, so we are to ripen our Christian character by patient waiting and patient enduring. It is a quiet virtue, this patience, and is apt to be overlooked and underestimated.
But in reality it is one of the most precious of the Christian graces. The noisy virtues, the ostentatious graces, have their day; patience has eternity. And while it is the most precious, it is also the most difficult. It is far easier to work than to wait, to be active than to be wisely passive. But it is when we are still that we know God, when we wait upon God that we renew our strength. Patience places the soul in the condition in which it is most susceptible to the quickening influences of heaven and most ready to take advantage of new opportunities.
V. But to this patience must be united godliness. Godliness is Godlikeness, having the same mind in us that was in Christ Jesus, viewing everything from the Divine point, and living in our inner life as fully in the light of His presence as we live in our outer life in the light of the sun. And exercising ourselves unto this godliness, our patience will have a Divine quality of strength, endurance, beauty, imparted to it such as no mere natural patience possesses.
In our godliness, as the Apostle says, we must have brotherly kindness; our brotherly kindness must be an essential element of our godliness. We are to show our godliness by our brotherly kindness. Sin separates between God and man, and between man and man. Grace unites man to God, and man to man. It is only when the higher relation is formed that we are able to fulfil perfectly the lower.
But brotherly kindness is apt to be restricted towards friends only—towards those who belong to the same place or the same Church, or who are Christians. It must therefore be conjoined with charity. In our brotherly kindness we are to exercise a large-hearted charity. We are to mingle with it godliness in order to expand our charity, to make it like His who maketh His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.
Universal kindness of thought, word, and deed is what is implied in this charity. Such, then, are the graces which we are enjoined by the Apostle to add to each other, to develop from each other, not as separate fruits dispersed widely over the branches of a tree, but as the berries of a cluster of grapes growing on the same stem, mutually connected and mutually dependent.
Such are the graces, to use the musical illustration of the text, which we are to temper, to modify the one by the other, just as the musician in tuning his instrument gives to each note not its exact mathematical value, but alters it to suit its neighbour notes, and thus produces a delightful harmony. ~ H. Macmillan, British Weekly Pulpit, vol. ii., p. 513.”
The Pulpit Commentary adds to this: “And beside this, giving all diligence; rather, but for this very cause also. Αὐτὸ τοῦτο is frequently used in this sense in classical Greek, but in the New Testament only here. It refers back to the last verse. God’s precious gifts and promises should stimulate us to earnest effort.
The verb rendered "giving" means literally "bringing in by the side;" it is one of those graphic and picturesque expressions which are characteristic of St. Peter’s style. God worketh within us both to will and to do; this (both St. Paul and St. Peter teach us) is a reason, not for remissness, but for increased exertion.
God’s grace is sufficient for us; without that we can do nothing; but by the side (so to speak) of that grace, along with it, we must bring into play all earnestness, we must work out our own salvation with fear and trembling. The word seems to imply that the work is God’s work; we can do very little indeed, but that very little we must do, and for the very reason that God is working in us.”
The Golden Series. I. It is no one grace which makes a Christian. A man may have great knowledge, but if he wants charity, it profits nothing, or if he be a man of courage, but without godliness, he is an hero, but he is not a saint. II. Nor does any number of excellences united make a Christian, unless they be excellences added to faith.
It is faith which makes the dead soul a living one, and so susceptible of every excellence. It is faith which joins the worldling to the Lord Jesus, and so makes him concordant with the Saviour, and inclined toward all good.
Whatever courses there may be in the structure, faith is the foundation; whatever tints of splendour may variegate the robe of many colours, faith is the mordant which absorbs and fixes them all; whatever graces may move in the harmonious choir, faith occupies the forefront, and is the leader of them all.
III. But where there is faith all that is needful in order to possess any other grace is diligence. Give all diligence, and add. On the one hand, diligence is needful. These graces will not come without effort, nor remain without culture, and there are some of them in which particular Christians never become conspicuous; but, with God’s blessing and the help of His Holy Spirit, diligence is sure to succeed… And with half the effort which some expend on growing rich or learned all of us might become holy, devout, and heavenly-minded. J. Hamilton, Works, vol. v., p. 329.
Matthew Henry concludes, “Here we may observe, (1.) It is the duty of believers to make their election sure, to clear it up to themselves that they are the chosen of God. (2.) The way to make sure their eternal election is to make out their effectual calling: none can look into the book of God's eternal counsels and decrees; but, inasmuch as whom God did predestinate those he also called, if we can find we are effectually called, we may conclude we are chosen to salvation.
(3.) It requires a great deal of diligence and labour to make sure our calling and election; there must be a very close examination of ourselves, a very narrow search and strict enquiry, whether we are thoroughly converted, our minds enlightened, our wills renewed, and our whole souls changed as to the bent and inclination thereof; and to come to a fixed certainty in this requires the utmost diligence, and cannot be attained and kept without divine assistance, as we may learn from Psalm 139:23 and Romans 8:16.
“But, how great soever the labour is, do not think much of it, for great is the advantage you gain by it; for,” [1.] “By this you will be kept from falling, and that at all times and seasons, even in those hours of temptation that shall be on the earth.” When others shall fall into heinous and scandalous sin, those who are thus diligent shall be enabled to walk circumspectly and keep on in the way of their duty; and, when many fall into errors, they shall be preserved sound in the faith, and stand perfect and complete in all the will of God.
Those who are diligent in the work of religion shall have a triumphant entrance into glory... those who are growing in grace, and abounding in the work of the Lord, shall have an abundant entrance into the joy of their Lord, even that everlasting kingdom where Christ reigns, and they shall reign with him for ever and ever.”
There is much more to review and examine regarding our need as Christians to not only walk, and not only to walk worthy, but also to persevere in our Christian calling. I plan, God willing, in the weeks to come, to continue our current Series. I invite all of you who are hearing or reading my words to join us at this same place and time.
This concludes this evening’s Discussion, “Perseverance, Part 4.”
This Discussion was presented “live” on Wednesday, March 12th, 2025.
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We are continuing in our current Series, "Perseverance," which, as I have been saying throughout this Series, is a feature of Christianity that I think needs to be more emphasized than it is. As Christians, we should not view our membership in the Family and Kingdom of God in the same way that we view a lifetime membership in a Health Club where we can still be regarded as members in good standing even if we never darken their door after signing on the dotted line. This is not what being a Christian is all about.
The Apostle Peter addressed our need as Christians to persevere in a rather long Scriptural passage. I am going to include his introduction to our need to persevere because of how he introduces it. In the very openingof his second epistle, Peter wrote the following, "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 that is in the world through lust. And beside 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. But he that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins. Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure: for if ye do these things, ye shall never fall (2 Peter 1:3-10).
The Expositor’s Bible says of this: “2 Peter 1:5-11: WHO SHALL ASCEND INTO THE HILL OF THE LORD? The Apostle has just set forth in all their fullness the riches of Divine grace: the precious faith, followed by the bestowal of all helps toward life and godliness, and with the large promises of God to rely on for the future, promises whereby those who seek to renounce the things which are not of the Father, but of the world, may become partakers of the Divine nature. These blessings are assured, are in store, but only for those who manifest a desire to receive them.
How this desire shall be shown, how it shall constantly grow stronger and be ever fulfilling, until it attain perfect fruition in Christ’s eternal kingdom, is the next instruction. "Yea, and for this very cause adding on your part all diligence, in your faith supply virtue." The plenteousness of the Divine bounty is proclaimed that it may evoke an earnest response from all who receive it.
What shall I render unto the Lord for all the benefits which He hath done, and is doing, unto me? is to be the heart’s cry of the feeblest of God’s saints. For the boundless Ocean of grace asks that there should be mingled with it some drops of human duty. God will heal the bite of the serpents in the wilderness, but to gain the blessing the wounded ones, even in their suffering, must turn their eyes to the appointed symbol of healing.
Christ’s power will cure ten lepers, but He first sends them away to do their little in the path of obedience: "Go, show yourselves to the priest." Thus the Apostle’s exhortation here, "Adding on your part all diligence." The diligence of which he speaks is that sort of endeavor which springs from a sense of duty: an earnest zeal and will to accomplish whatever it finds to do; that does not linger till some great work offers, but hastens to labor in the immediate present.
This is the spirit in which Christian advance will be made. And the lines on which such progress will go he now describes as though each new step were evolved from, and were a natural development of, that which preceded it. The faith which the Christian holds fast is the gift of God, and it contains the germs of every grace that can follow. These the believer is to foster with diligence.
St. Peter begins his scale of graces thus: "In your faith supply virtue." Here virtue means the best development of such power as a man possesses. It may be little or great, but in its kind it is to be made excellent. And here it is that the Christian workers in every sphere must surpass others.
They work from a higher motive. What they do is a constant attestation of their faith, is done as in God’s sight, and in the confidence that in every act it is possible to give Him glory. There can be no carelessness in such lives, for they are filled with a sense of responsibility, which is the first fruit of a living faith.
And in St. Peter’s figurative word the believer is said to supply each grace in turn because he contributes by his careful walk to wake it into life, to make it active, and let it shine as a light before men. "And in your virtue knowledge," he continues. For, with duty rightly done, there comes illumination over the path of life: men understand more of God’s dealings, and hence bring their lives into closer harmony with His will.
And we have Christ’s own assurance, "If any man willeth to do His will, he shall know of the teaching". (Joh_7:17) And the same is true not only of the Lord’s own lessons, but of all the promptings of the Spirit in men’s hearts. If they hearken to the voice which whispers, "This is the way," it will become at every stage plainer, and there will be shown to them not only the how, but the wherefore.
"And in your knowledge temperance." There is a knowledge which puffeth up, giving not humility, which is the fruit of true knowledge, but self-conceit. Of the evil effects thereof the Apostle knew much. Out of it grew extravagance in thought, and word, and action; and its mischief was threatening the infant Churches. Against it the temperance which he commends is to be the safeguard, and it is a virtue which can be manifested in all things.
He who possesses it has conquered himself, and has won his way thus to stability of mind and consistency of conduct. "His heart is fixed, trusting in the Lord," and so he can go forward to the Apostle’s next stage of the heavenward journey: "And in your temperance patience." This is the true sequence of spiritual self-control. Life is sure to supply for the godly man trials in abundance. But he is daily striving to die unto the world.
The effort fixes his mind firmly on the Divine purposes, and lifts him above the circumstances of time. He is a pilgrim and sojourner amidst them, but is in no bondage to them, nor will he be moved, even by great afflictions, to waver in his trust. He can look on, as seeing Him that is invisible, and can persevere without being unduly cast down.
"And in your patience godliness." The mystery of godliness-that is, Godlikeness-was made known by the Incarnation. The Son of God became man, that men might through Him be made sons of God. And godliness in the present world is Christ made manifest in the lives of His servants. Toward this imitation of Christ the believer will aspire through his patience.
He takes up the cross and bears it after his Master, and thus begins his discipleship, of which the communion with Christ waxes more intimate day by day. Such was the godliness of St. Paul. It was because he had followed the Lord in all that He would have him to do that the Apostle was bold to exhort the Corinthians, "Be ye imitators of me"; but he adds at once, "as I am of Christ" (1 Corinthians_11:1).
And when he sends Timothy to recall his teaching to their minds he says, "He shall put you in remembrance of my ways which are in Christ." By such a walk with Christ His servants are helped forward towards the fulfillment of the two tables of the moral law, to which St. Peter alludes in his next words: "And in your godliness love of the brethren; and in your love of the brethren love."
The last-named love (αγαπη) is that highest love, the love of God to men, which is set up as the grand ideal towards which His servants are constantly to press forward; but from this the love of the brethren cannot be severed; nay, it must be made the stepping-stone unto it. For, as another Apostle says, "he that loveth not his brother, whom he hath seen, cannot love God, whom he hath not seen" (1 John_4:20).
But love of the brethren is not to be narrowed, in the verse before us, or elsewhere, to love of those who are already known to the Churches as brethren in the Lord. The Gospel of Christ knows no such limits. The commission of the Master was, "Go ye forth into all the world." All mankind are to be won for Him; all are embraced in the name of brethren. For if they be not so now, it is our bounden duty to endeavor that they shall be so.
And in thus interpreting we have the mind of Christ with us, who came to seek and to save them that were lost, to die for the sins of the whole world, and who found His brethren among every class who would hear His words and obey them. We have with us, too, the acts of God Himself, who would have all men come to the knowledge of the truth, and who, with impartial love, maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth His rain upon the just and the unjust, that thus even the evil and unjust may be won to own His Fatherhood.
Such Divine love is the end of the commandment, (1Ti_1:5) and terminates the list of those graces the steps whereto St. Paul has more briefly indicated when he says the love which is most like God’s springs from a pure heart, a good conscience, and faith unfeigned. In this way shall men be borne upward into the hill of the Lord.
The knowledge of Christ is a lesson in which we cannot be perfected till we behold Him as He is, but yet through it from the first we receive the earnest and pledge of all that is meant by life and godliness, and the culture of the Divine gifts, will yield a rich increase of the same knowledge. "For if these things are yours and abound, they make you to be not idle nor unfruitful unto the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ."
Men in this life can draw nearer unto this full knowledge, and the bliss of each new gain prompts to more zealous exertion. There can be no relaxation of effort, no remissness, in such a quest. For hope is fostered by the constant experience of a deepening knowledge, and receives continual pledges that the glory to be revealed is far above what is already known.
The enlightened vision grows wider and ampler; and the path, which began in faith, shineth more and more unto the perfect day. The world offers other lights to its votaries, but they lead only into darkness. "For he that lacketh these things is blind, seeing only what is near, having forgotten the cleansing from his old sins."
He who has taken no heed to foster within him the light which is kindled by faith, and which can only be kept alive by the grace of the Divine Spirit, is blind-yea, blind indeed, for he is self-blinded. He has quenched the inward light which was of God’s free gift, and made the light within him to be darkness, a darkness, like Egypt’s, which may be felt.
Such a man has no insight into the glories of the celestial vision, no joy of the widening prospect which captivates the gaze of the spiritual man. He can see only things close at hand, and is as one bowed downward to the earth, groping a dreary way, with neither hope nor exaltation at the end.
For he has forgotten-nay, St. Peter’s words are stronger and very striking-ληθην λαβων-he has taken hold upon forgetfulness, made a deliberate choice of that course which obliterates all remembrance of God’s initial gift of grace to cleanse him from his old sins. Unmindful of this purification, he has admitted into the dwelling where the Spirit of God would have made a home other spirits more wicked than those first cast out.
They have entered in, and dwell there. There is a marked contrast between this expression and the word used for God’s gift of faith (2 Peter 1:1). That a man receives (λαχων) as the bounty of his Lord’s love; and if treasured and used, it proves itself the light of life for this world and the next. The wrong path he chooses for himself (λαβων), and its close is the blackness of the dark.
"Wherefore, brethren, give the more diligence to make your calling and election sure." "Wherefore, brethren"-because such terrible blindness as this has fallen upon some, who left their first grace unimproved and allowed even the memory of it to fade away. Do you give the more diligence in your religious life? The true way to banish evil is to multiply good, leaving neither room nor time for bad things to spread themselves.
When the peril of such things is round about you, it is no time for relaxed effort. Your enemy never relaxes his. He is always active, seeking whom he may devour, and employs not the day only, but the night, when men sleep, to sow his tares. Let him find you ever watchful, ever diligent to hold fast and make abundant the gifts which God has already bestowed upon you.
In the foreknowledge of the Father, you are elect from the foundation of the world; and your call is attested by the injunction laid upon you, "Ye shall be holy, for I am holy." Your inheritance is in store where nothing can assail it. God only asks that you should manifest a wish, a longing, for His blessings; and He will pour them richly upon you. He has made you of a loftier mould than the inanimate and irrational creation.
The flower turns to the sun by a law which it cannot resist. From the Sun of righteousness men can turn away. But the Father’s will is that your eyes should be set on the hope which He offers. Then of a certainty it will be realized. Lift up your eyes to the eternal hills, for from thence your help will come. The promise is sure. Strive to keep your hope equally steadfast.
For now you belong to the household of Christ; now you are through Him children of the heavenly Father; to this sonship you are elect and have been called, and to it you shall attain if you hold fast your boldness and the glorying of your hope unto the end. "For if ye do these things, ye shall never stumble." The way will be hard, and may be long, the obstacles in your path many and rugged, heaped up by the prince of this world to bar you from advancing and make you fainthearted; but down into there a ray which shall illumine the darkness and make clear for you the steps in which you ought to tread, and the rod and staff of God’s might will support and comfort you.
"For thus shall be richly supplied unto you the entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ." In his first words in this passage the Apostle exhorted the believers to supply something, as it were, of their own towards their spiritual advancement; but when the demand was fully understood, behold God had made ready the means for doing everything which was asked for!
Within the precious faith which He bestowed was enfolded the potentiality of every other grace. There they lay, as seeds in a seed-plot. All that men were bidden to do was to give them culture. Then God’s Spirit would operate as the generous sunshine, and cause each hidden power to unfold itself in its time and bloom into beauty and strength. In this verse the Divine assistance is more clearly promised.
What men bestow shall be returned unto them manifold. Do your diligence, says the Apostle, and there shall be supplied unto you from the rich stores of God all that can help you forward in your heavenward journey. The kingdom of God shall begin for you while you are passing through this present life. For it can be set up within you.
It has been prepared from all eternity in heaven, and will be enjoyed in full fruition when this life is ended. But it is a state, and not a place. The entrance thereto is opened here. The believer is beckoned into it; and with enraptured soul he enjoys through faith a foretaste of the things which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor heart of man conceived, the things which God has prepared for them that love Him. Over those joys Christ is King, but He is also the door; and those who enter through Him shall go in and out, and shall surely find pasture, even life for evermore.”
The Sermon Bible adds to this: “Christian Growth. The word in the text which has been translated in our version "add" is a very pictorial term, and refers to a choir of well-trained musicians, such as Heman or Asaph led in the days of David and Solomon;
and the idea which it implies is that as the different instruments of the great orchestral concert of the Jewish service blended together and produced a noble and harmonious outburst of praise to Jehovah, as the singers and the musicians each performed his special part, and all combined in one perfect unison of sound, so the growth of the Christian character should be accomplished by the harmonious development of each moral quality...
and the Christian life, composed of so many different elements, should be one continuous hymn of praise to Him who is our song and our salvation. There are two ways in which we may add to our faith all the graces which the Apostle enumerates. We may add them as a builder adds stone to stone in his wall, or we may add them as a plant adds cell to cell in its structure.
Both these modes of increase are used separately or in combination in Scripture to illustrate Christian growth. We are said to be rooted and grounded in love, and to grow into a holy temple in the Lord. We are rooted as plants in the Divine life, deriving our nourishment and stability from it; we are grounded as living stones on the precious Corner-stone; the double image expressing in combination the active and passive sides of Christian faith.
And so likewise the combination of ideas borrowed from plant-life and from architecture to express the growth of Christian life unto a holy temple in the Lord denotes the two modes in which growth is made: by active exertion and passive trusting; by being fellow-workers with God, working out our own salvation, while we realise that it is God that worketh in us both to will and to do of His good pleasure. We have not only to rest, after the manner of a building, on the finished work of Christ, but we have to draw, after the manner of a plant, out of God’s fulness, grace for grace.
I. The first thing that we are commanded by the Apostle to "add" to our faith is virtue, meaning by this term vigour, manliness. In our faith we are to manifest this quality. Our faith is to be itself a source of power to us. We are to be strong in faith. It is to be to us the power of God unto salvation, enabling us to overcome the temptations and evils of the world and to rise above all the infirmities of our own nature. It is not enough that the Christian character should be beautiful: it should also be strong.
Strength and beauty should be the characteristics not only of God’s house, but also of God’s people. But how often is the quality of strength absent from piety! Piety in the estimation of the world is synonymous with weakness and effeminacy. The world is apt to think that it is only weaklings who are pious—persons who have neither strong intellects, nor strong affections, nor strong characters.
Young men are too apt to be ashamed of confessing Christ openly before men, under the fear that they should be regarded as something between milksops and hypocrites. And too many professing Christians are confessedly "feeble folk." It is most necessary, therefore, that we should add to our faith courage, manliness. Our faith should be manifested, as it was in olden times, by a victorious strength which is able to overcome the world, which fears the Lord and knows no other fear.
II. To this strength or manliness we are further commanded to "add" knowledge. In our manliness we are to seek after knowledge. The quality of courage is to be shown by the fearlessness of our researches into all the works and ways of God. We are not to be deterred by any dread of consequences from investigating and finding out the whole truth. The Bible places no restrictions upon an inquiring spirit.
It does not prevent men from examining and proving all things, and bringing even the most sacred subjects to the test of reason. God says to us in regard to the holiest things, "Come and let us reason together." He has given to us the faculties by means of which we may find out truth and store up knowledge; and He wishes us to exercise these faculties freely in every department of His works.
III. But further the Apostle enjoins us to add to our knowledge temperance. This had originally a wider meaning, and covered a larger breadth of character. It meant sober-mindedness, a chastened temper and habit of the soul—a wise self-control by which the higher powers kept the lower well in hand and restrained them from excesses of all kinds.
And this sober-mindedness, which expresses better than any other single word the true temper of the Christian in this world, is an indispensable adjunct to the Christian character. With wonderful sagacity, the Apostle commands us to add to our knowledge temperance; for there is a tendency in knowledge to puff us up and fill our hearts with pride.
IV. To this self-government we must add patience. Our self-government itself is to be an exercise of patience. In our temperance we are to be patient, not giving way to a hasty temper or a restless disposition. As the plant slowly ripens its fruit, so we are to ripen our Christian character by patient waiting and patient enduring. It is a quiet virtue, this patience, and is apt to be overlooked and underestimated.
But in reality it is one of the most precious of the Christian graces. The noisy virtues, the ostentatious graces, have their day; patience has eternity. And while it is the most precious, it is also the most difficult. It is far easier to work than to wait, to be active than to be wisely passive. But it is when we are still that we know God, when we wait upon God that we renew our strength. Patience places the soul in the condition in which it is most susceptible to the quickening influences of heaven and most ready to take advantage of new opportunities.
V. But to this patience must be united godliness. Godliness is Godlikeness, having the same mind in us that was in Christ Jesus, viewing everything from the Divine point, and living in our inner life as fully in the light of His presence as we live in our outer life in the light of the sun. And exercising ourselves unto this godliness, our patience will have a Divine quality of strength, endurance, beauty, imparted to it such as no mere natural patience possesses.
In our godliness, as the Apostle says, we must have brotherly kindness; our brotherly kindness must be an essential element of our godliness. We are to show our godliness by our brotherly kindness. Sin separates between God and man, and between man and man. Grace unites man to God, and man to man. It is only when the higher relation is formed that we are able to fulfil perfectly the lower.
But brotherly kindness is apt to be restricted towards friends only—towards those who belong to the same place or the same Church, or who are Christians. It must therefore be conjoined with charity. In our brotherly kindness we are to exercise a large-hearted charity. We are to mingle with it godliness in order to expand our charity, to make it like His who maketh His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.
Universal kindness of thought, word, and deed is what is implied in this charity. Such, then, are the graces which we are enjoined by the Apostle to add to each other, to develop from each other, not as separate fruits dispersed widely over the branches of a tree, but as the berries of a cluster of grapes growing on the same stem, mutually connected and mutually dependent.
Such are the graces, to use the musical illustration of the text, which we are to temper, to modify the one by the other, just as the musician in tuning his instrument gives to each note not its exact mathematical value, but alters it to suit its neighbour notes, and thus produces a delightful harmony. ~ H. Macmillan, British Weekly Pulpit, vol. ii., p. 513.”
The Pulpit Commentary adds to this: “And beside this, giving all diligence; rather, but for this very cause also. Αὐτὸ τοῦτο is frequently used in this sense in classical Greek, but in the New Testament only here. It refers back to the last verse. God’s precious gifts and promises should stimulate us to earnest effort.
The verb rendered "giving" means literally "bringing in by the side;" it is one of those graphic and picturesque expressions which are characteristic of St. Peter’s style. God worketh within us both to will and to do; this (both St. Paul and St. Peter teach us) is a reason, not for remissness, but for increased exertion.
God’s grace is sufficient for us; without that we can do nothing; but by the side (so to speak) of that grace, along with it, we must bring into play all earnestness, we must work out our own salvation with fear and trembling. The word seems to imply that the work is God’s work; we can do very little indeed, but that very little we must do, and for the very reason that God is working in us.”
The Golden Series. I. It is no one grace which makes a Christian. A man may have great knowledge, but if he wants charity, it profits nothing, or if he be a man of courage, but without godliness, he is an hero, but he is not a saint. II. Nor does any number of excellences united make a Christian, unless they be excellences added to faith.
It is faith which makes the dead soul a living one, and so susceptible of every excellence. It is faith which joins the worldling to the Lord Jesus, and so makes him concordant with the Saviour, and inclined toward all good.
Whatever courses there may be in the structure, faith is the foundation; whatever tints of splendour may variegate the robe of many colours, faith is the mordant which absorbs and fixes them all; whatever graces may move in the harmonious choir, faith occupies the forefront, and is the leader of them all.
III. But where there is faith all that is needful in order to possess any other grace is diligence. Give all diligence, and add. On the one hand, diligence is needful. These graces will not come without effort, nor remain without culture, and there are some of them in which particular Christians never become conspicuous; but, with God’s blessing and the help of His Holy Spirit, diligence is sure to succeed… And with half the effort which some expend on growing rich or learned all of us might become holy, devout, and heavenly-minded. J. Hamilton, Works, vol. v., p. 329.
Matthew Henry concludes, “Here we may observe, (1.) It is the duty of believers to make their election sure, to clear it up to themselves that they are the chosen of God. (2.) The way to make sure their eternal election is to make out their effectual calling: none can look into the book of God's eternal counsels and decrees; but, inasmuch as whom God did predestinate those he also called, if we can find we are effectually called, we may conclude we are chosen to salvation.
(3.) It requires a great deal of diligence and labour to make sure our calling and election; there must be a very close examination of ourselves, a very narrow search and strict enquiry, whether we are thoroughly converted, our minds enlightened, our wills renewed, and our whole souls changed as to the bent and inclination thereof; and to come to a fixed certainty in this requires the utmost diligence, and cannot be attained and kept without divine assistance, as we may learn from Psalm 139:23 and Romans 8:16.
“But, how great soever the labour is, do not think much of it, for great is the advantage you gain by it; for,” [1.] “By this you will be kept from falling, and that at all times and seasons, even in those hours of temptation that shall be on the earth.” When others shall fall into heinous and scandalous sin, those who are thus diligent shall be enabled to walk circumspectly and keep on in the way of their duty; and, when many fall into errors, they shall be preserved sound in the faith, and stand perfect and complete in all the will of God.
Those who are diligent in the work of religion shall have a triumphant entrance into glory... those who are growing in grace, and abounding in the work of the Lord, shall have an abundant entrance into the joy of their Lord, even that everlasting kingdom where Christ reigns, and they shall reign with him for ever and ever.”
There is much more to review and examine regarding our need as Christians to not only walk, and not only to walk worthy, but also to persevere in our Christian calling. I plan, God willing, in the weeks to come, to continue our current Series. I invite all of you who are hearing or reading my words to join us at this same place and time.
This concludes this evening’s Discussion, “Perseverance, Part 4.”
This Discussion was presented “live” on Wednesday, March 12th, 2025.
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