As his divine power has given to us all things which relate to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that has called us by glory and virtue,
Peter opens his last letter with what believers already have. God's own power has given them everything they need for life and godliness. Two questions follow. What does "all things" include? And what does it mean that God calls us by, or to, His own glory and excellence?
One writer names some of what God has given, and stresses that nothing is left out:
We have not only received life. With it we have received all the things needed to show that new life in practical Christian living and godly behaviour... A few moments' thought would remind us of some of the gifts God's power has given us: the Holy Spirit living in us, the Word of God written for us, the throne of grace opened to us, to name only three. We have received not some but ALL things that have to do with life and godliness. So we are sent out fully equipped. Nothing is lacking on God's part.
Another writer counts trial and sorrow as part of that supply:
There is no limit at all in what God gives us... Whatever comes, whether trial, difficulty or sorrow, we as believers can never think it is random. It comes from Him... This is part of what He calls "all things that pertain to life and godliness," because trial and difficulty make up the very path where we must live out that life and keep up that godliness.
These two words are not a repetition:
Life is of course the living spring of spiritual existence, and only the One who gives it can keep it going. Godliness is the practical showing of that life, and so a reflection of God's own character. The first has to do with God's side of things, the second with our own side.
Another writer traces the order: life first, then likeness:
Eternal life is a life that enjoys God and is suited to God... The first thing is a life that comes from Him, and is taken up with nothing but Him. Then comes godliness, God-likeness.
One writer ties this power to what faith knows of God:
But there is a living power with this knowledge — a divine power in what God is to believers, as He is revealed to faith in this knowledge. This divine power has given us all that belongs to life and godliness. Through the real knowledge we have of Him who has called us, this power becomes available and effective for everything that belongs to life and godliness.
Older translations read "by glory and virtue" here. Writers who follow that reading take glory as the goal set before us, and virtue as courage:
So we have here the call of God to pursue glory as our object, winning the victory by virtue — spiritual courage — over all the enemies we find in our path. This is not a law given to a people already gathered together. It is glory set before us, to be reached by spiritual energy.
Another writer draws out the practical pull of both words together, noting they were rendered "by God's own glory and by virtue":
The glory of God in the future has the most powerful influence among the traps of the present. So God has revealed that glory as our hope, through Christ and with Christ, to lift the soul above everything that attracts it or drags it down. He has called us by His own glory, and by the virtue, or moral courage, that refuses to indulge self, which is against the will of God.
Adam, the first man, was never called in this way:
Calling does not apply to an innocent creature, but to a fallen one. Calling means that God speaks to take that creature out of the state he is in, and put him into a better one. Adam was to magnify God by honouring Him where he was, and by enjoying what God had given him all around, not by reaching for something unseen or greater.
Three powers stand against the believer, and one stands far above them:
We have to face the power of the flesh within, the power of the world around, and the power of the devil against us. But the power of God is far above every power set against us, and it is for us. In this power it is possible to live the life of godliness.
- Power — the starting point is God's own power, not ours. It works in us and gives us all we need for life and godliness.
- Provision — the gift is all things, not some: the Spirit, the Word, access to God, and even trial as the road where we live that life out.
- Pair — life is God's side, the spring; godliness is our side, the likeness to Him that shows.
- Path — we reach that power by knowing Him; the call comes by glory ahead and courage for the road.
- Purpose — with flesh, world and devil against us, no believer can plead lack. Nothing is missing on God's part.
through which he has given to us the greatest and precious promises, that through these ye may become partakers of [the] divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
Peter has just said that God's divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness. Verse 4 shows how that power reaches us: through promises. It also shows what they produce — a share in God's own nature and a real escape from the world's corruption.
One writer traces these promises back further than Israel's history:
What are these promises? They are certainly not the ones God made to the fathers. Those were great. But the promises spoken of here are "precious and very great." We have to go back into eternity to find out what they are. They come to us so that we may become partakers of the divine nature. No doubt they include all that God purposed in His own mind to bring us into, all He has promised us in Christ Jesus.
Peter names some of them later in the letter, and they hang together with God's call:
Calling and promise always go together. If God calls, He calls with some purposed blessing in view. Later in the letter Peter points to these promises: the promise of the Lord's coming, and the very great promise of "new heavens and a new earth" (2 Peter 3:4, 13).
There is a limit to what we share, and one writer draws it:
In 2 Peter 1:4 we are made partakers of divine nature — the words do not say of the divine nature — and by promise this is our own state. But we are not love, for Love is sovereign goodness, and that we cannot be. We love as sharers in divine nature too, but we can never be sovereign goodness.
The same writer refuses the idea of being brought into Godhead, "which is incommunicable as supreme, because we are creatures," while insisting that "the moral elements of what He is God can communicate in giving us life in Christ."
Does the verse describe new birth, or something after it? One writer answers from Peter's readers:
Every true believer is "born of God" and in that sense shares in the divine nature (see 1 John 3:9)... But the meaning of our passage is not that the things given to us make us born again. Peter was writing to people who were already "born again" (1 Peter 1:23). The meaning is that these things lead us into a practical, experienced partaking of the divine nature. In one word, love is the divine nature. So verses 5 to 7 describe the believer's growth as reaching its high point in love.
Another writer holds the two together and describes the daily side of it:
God makes us partakers of the divine nature at conversion, when we are born again. But Peter shows us the sweet result of tasting what the Lord is and walking with Him... He brings us into the atmosphere that suits God. We breathe the air He breathes, and so we become spiritual... First we get the capacity to enjoy God. Then, as we walk with Him, that enjoyment deepens.
The change comes from what fills the soul:
So God makes us partakers of the divine nature in a moral sense. His power acts in us and fixes the soul on what He has revealed. What a precious truth! What a high privilege! It makes us able to enjoy God Himself, and everything good with Him.
Another writer rules out a well-known teaching about holiness:
The victorious life does not come from some fixed "holiness experience" that wipes out the old nature. That teaching is completely against Scripture. The heart must be taken up with Christ and with the glory by which He has called us. Then the divine power, the Holy Spirit in us, acts, and victory over sin follows.
The verse names sinful desire as the root, and there is only one way out:
All the corruption in the world is the fruit of lust. The word "lust" covers every desire that springs from man's fallen nature. The law of Moses came in and put a restraint on those desires. But the law did not hold lust back; men's lusts broke through its restraints... God brings us believers to share in the divine nature, and holiness springs from that nature. So we are lifted out of the corruption and escape it... there is no other way of escape than this.
This escape is more than being held back:
We not only refuse to give in to it. Our hearts are taken up elsewhere, and the enemy's work on the flesh is held off. The desires we could never clean out of ourselves are removed. The heart's corrupt tie to the thing it wanted comes to an end. It is a real deliverance.
- Given — the promises come with God's call. They reach back into what He purposed in eternity, and they go far beyond what He promised the fathers.
- Shared — we partake of divine nature, but we never become God. We love, yet we can never be sovereign goodness.
- Formed — new birth makes us partakers. Walking with the Lord makes it practical, and love is where the growth arrives.
- Occupied — the promises fix the soul on what God has revealed. No special experience wipes out the old nature.
- Freed — lust is the root of the world's corruption, and the divine nature is the only way out. The heart is not just held back; it is taken up elsewhere.
But for this very reason also, using therewith all diligence, in your faith have also virtue, in virtue knowledge,
Peter has just said that God has given us everything we need, and that we share in the divine nature through His promises. Verse 5 turns to what we must now do with that gift. The first word is not "relax" but "diligence".
The opening phrase points back to the gift. One writer says the older English wording weakens it:
It is not "And besides this." It is an energetic call for what is due to the grace of God. That grace gave the remarkable blessing of sharing a divine nature through faith in His very great and precious promises. Even a mind ruled by the flesh draws a conclusion from the power and certainty of divine grace. It sees that there is room for earnest and practical purpose of heart in the believer. But Scripture enlarges the argument, warns against sloth and easy-going, and summons us to constant diligence on all sides.
A new nature is a living thing, and living things need care.
The divine nature the believer has received loves the will of God. It is a holy nature, so it hates the corruption that is in the world through lust. But that divine nature grows and develops in the life of the child of God, and that growth needs all care and diligence. Suppose Christians say they have a new nature, are born again, and saved by grace. Then they go on living according to the old nature, enjoying the world and its sinful pleasures, without showing godliness and virtue. They are not only in a very unscriptural position, but on dangerous ground.
Older Bibles read "add to your faith virtue." One writer says that picture of adding misleads: virtue is to be found inside faith, and knowledge inside virtue.
This is not addition in the ordinary sense of the word. Verse 5 should read, "For this very reason, using also all diligence, in your faith have also virtue, in virtue knowledge," and so on. You are perfect when you do not lack any of these qualities. Someone may give you an apple to taste, because you are a good judge of apples; you taste it and say, It is very nice, but it lacks sweetness. So you may say of a Christian, "He is a nice Christian, but he lacks self-control." The Christian is to show the divine nature in all its qualities.
The word "virtue" here means courage, not politeness. It is the backbone that lets a believer refuse.
Virtue is that energy and courage of soul that knows how to refuse as well as to choose. Moses did that. He "refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin." You have the faith that connects you with God, and you believe in what you cannot yet see. But now you must add virtue. That is the courage which knows how to say "No" to the thousand things that come up day by day, and to press on without wavering in the pathway set before us.
Why does virtue come first? Without it the rest have nothing to stand on.
This self-government — this virtue, this moral energy — is deliverance from evil, and it makes communion with God possible. It is the one thing that gives reality to all the rest. Without virtue we are not really with God. Can divine power develop itself in the looseness of the flesh? And if we are not really with God — if the new nature is not acting — knowledge is only the puffing up of the flesh. Patience is only a natural quality, or else hypocrisy. It is the same with the rest.
Courage on its own can do damage. It needs a guide.
In virtue we are to have knowledge. Virtue gives great strength to a person's character. But strength must follow knowledge — and that means the highest and best knowledge of all, the knowledge of God and His will. Otherwise it may become a dangerous thing.
What happens if the adding stops?
If this blessed adding is missing, there is sure to be a going back. There is no such thing as standing still. If we are not progressing, we are going backwards. "To the one who has, more will be given… but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away." If there is no desire to press on, to go on with the Lord, what is left? Only a return to the things the Lord called us out of in days gone by.
- Because — "for this very reason" looks back to what God has already given. Grace is the reason for diligence, never an excuse for sloth.
- Growth — the new nature is alive, and living things grow only with care. A new nature claimed with an old lifestyle is dangerous ground.
- Supply — the call is not to bolt on extras but to lack nothing: every quality of the new life showing in the believer.
- Virtue — courage that says "No" comes first. Without it, knowledge only puffs up; with it, the knowledge of God and His will aims that strength.
- Backwards — with no adding there is no standing still. We only drift back to what the Lord called us out of.
in knowledge temperance, in temperance endurance, in endurance godliness,
This verse sits in the middle of a chain of qualities that begins with faith. Older translations call two of them "temperance" and "patience"; the ESV reads "self-control" and "steadfastness", and both words carry more than they first seem.
Many read the chain as if each quality sat on top of the last like bricks. The wording points elsewhere:
The familiar passage in 2 Peter, "Add to your faith, virtue," and so on, is not really addition. To put it in numbers, it is multiplication. It is, "Have in your faith, virtue." That is, let courage mark your faith; let knowledge mark your courage; let self-control mark your knowledge, and so on.
That turns the whole list into a test of completeness, not a ladder to climb:
The thought is having all the qualities that belong to the perfect thing. You are perfect when you do not lack any of these qualities. Someone may give you an apple to taste, because you are a good judge of apples. You taste it and say, It is very nice, but it lacks sweetness. So you may say of a Christian, "He is a nice Christian, but he lacks temperance."
The next quality, self-control, is often narrowed to food and drink. One writer widens it:
The word "temperance" in 2 Peter 1:6 means much more than people usually take it to mean. They apply it to a habit of moderation in eating and drinking. No doubt it fully involves this, but it involves much more. In fact, the Greek word the inspired apostle uses can be translated "self-control." It gives the idea of someone who keeps himself well reined in at all times.
Where does that restraint come from? One writer traces it to truth taking hold of the heart:
The very first thing, as we learn the truth, is to recognise the claim the truth has on us. That is its discipline: it separates us from other things and so gives us self-restraint, the power to command ourselves. We may be sure that we can command nothing else if we do not begin here. "In knowledge," therefore, we are to find "temperance," self-restraint. The truth is to govern us, and so to give us the power of self-government. The heart must be in the knowledge, not the head only.
Peter places self-control immediately after knowledge, and commentators see the reason in what unrestrained knowledge does to people around us:
If knowledge alone rules us, we can easily become creatures of extremes. A believer who sees things very clearly can act in a way that endangers the welfare of less discerning brothers and sisters, as Romans 14 and 1 Corinthians 8 show us. So we need temperance.
Self-control and endurance work in opposite directions:
Temperance will keep me from saying or doing something that will wound you. Patience will keep me from being upset by anything you may do that is likely to wound me. Temperance is active, patience is passive!
The suffering in view here is suffering we did not deserve:
There is suffering for righteousness, if not for Christ's name, and it is never far from a Christian's path for long. So he needs the self-control that supplies "endurance." He is not to flinch if he is called to suffer, however unjustly. It is natural to complain about this, but how unworthy it is! Would it be any satisfaction, or real relief, if one deserved it?
The verse ends with godliness. One writer explains it as likeness that grows from the company we keep:
"And to patience godliness" — God-likeness. You walk through this world possessing the divine nature. See that you display it, show it! Show me a man's company, and I will show you what kind of man he is. If you are keeping company with God you will be a godly person, for we all resemble the thing we are occupied with. It comes out in a thousand details of our everyday life.
We lose this link most easily under pressure — and that is when we need it most:
Nothing matters more for the soul than keeping our links with God and our Lord Jesus fresh and in constant use — links of reverence and affection, of dependence and obedience. Yet work presses hard on us, and so do the course of the age, the deceitfulness of riches, the disappointment at loss, and desires for other things. That makes the danger from any earthly preoccupation great.
- In, not on. Read it as "in knowledge, self-control": each quality colours the next. The test is whether anything is missing, not how high you have climbed.
- Knowledge governs. Truth first lays its claim on the heart. Whoever cannot command himself will command nothing else.
- Self-control restrains. The word reaches far past eating and drinking: it means self kept well reined in. It also keeps our clear knowledge from harming believers who see less.
- Endurance bears. Self-control stops me wounding you. Endurance keeps me steady when others wound me — suffering I did nothing to deserve.
- Godliness walks. The chain ends in company kept with God. It shows in a thousand ordinary details, and we hold it fast when work, loss and desire pull hardest.
in godliness brotherly love, in brotherly love love
Peter's list of Christian qualities ends with two words many readers treat as the same: brotherly affection and love. The verse treats them as different. So what does love have that brotherly affection lacks?
The verse ends with two terms that older English wording tends to blur.
Scripture distinguishes between "love" and "brotherly love." The original uses distinct words for them. Love is "agape," and brotherly love is one word, "philadelphia." "Philadelphia" is more like friendly love. The Authorised Version tried to express this with the phrase "brotherly kindness." But it is more than that. It includes kindness, but it is love — love in the shape it takes between brothers and sisters. Perhaps the best rendering is "brotherly affection."
The word behind "add" is closer to furnishing a quality than piling one item on another. Commentators point out the difference this makes to how we read the whole list.
This is not addition in the ordinary sense of the word. Having all the qualities of the perfect thing is the thought. You are perfect when you do not lack any of these qualities. A person may give you an apple to taste, because you are a good judge of apples; you taste it, and say, It is very nice, but it lacks sweetness. So you may say of a Christian, "He is a nice Christian, but he lacks self-control." The divine nature in all its qualities is to be seen in the Christian.
Godliness on its own can go cold.
Dry godliness — if one may speak so — won't do. With godliness we must have the warmth of Christian friendship, brotherly affection. Sometimes a machine moves stiffly and roughly, and may not move at all, when a few drops of oil would make it run right and smooth. Love among believers works the same way. It overcomes the difficulties of the day, conquers coldness and apathy, and goes out winning the hearts of the saints to serve them.
Make brotherly affection the highest goal, and believers themselves become the measure.
Brotherly love is a most sweet and precious fruit of grace. That is entirely true. It is precious in the heart that is filled with it, and precious as it grows between us. But it is not love in the full sense. We are told to add love to brotherly love. The reason is simple. In brotherly love, brothers and sisters are the object. When it is genuine and pure, it does flow from grace. But in us it easily takes on the character its object gives it. It tends to limit itself to the people it is taken up with, and to be ruled by its feeling toward them. It tends to stop in its objects. It avoids anything that might hurt them or spoil the pleasantness between them. So it makes them the measure of the Christian's conduct.
Love brings God into the room, and that changes what love will tolerate.
Love will not tolerate evil. That is because it is God's presence, and because we feel His presence and look to Him in it. In mere brotherly kindness, the brother is the object before my mind. So I put man before God, cover up evil, keep the kindness going, and so far shut God out. Love is His active presence, though it will be shown in love to man; but it gives to God all His rights.
The difference shows up when the two pull in opposite directions.
These last two qualities are not the same. "Love" is a great deal more and deeper than "brotherly kindness." The latter makes one's brother the prominent object; the former tests everything by God and His will and glory. So you may find a Christian very full of brotherly love, but sadly at fault when the test of love comes. Love feels and insists that the first of all duties is that God should have His way.
Love reaches wider than the circle of believers, and plays no favourites inside it.
With brotherly love we are also to have love — divine love. Otherwise our love may go no further than our brothers and sisters, instead of flowing out in the largeness of the love of God to the world around. Also, brotherly love may easily sink into partiality and mere human affection.
Where affection waits to be drawn out, love carries its own source.
In brotherly kindness there is an object for my love that draws it out, but love is a nature, and it looks for an object on which to spend itself.
- Supply, don't stack. The list is not arithmetic. All these qualities belong in one character, and it is complete only when none of them is missing.
- Godliness first. Godliness comes before affection for people. But dry godliness won't do. Brotherly affection is the oil that keeps it moving.
- Affection has a ceiling. When fellow believers are the object, they become the measure. Kindness then starts covering what should be faced.
- Love brings God in. Love is deeper than affection. It tests everything by God's will, and it will not shut Him out to keep things pleasant.
- Love reaches further. Love has its own source. It does not wait to be drawn out, it plays no favourites, and it flows past the circle of believers to the world outside.