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.
for these things existing and abounding in you make [you] to be neither idle nor unfruitful as regards the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ;
Peter has just listed the qualities that mark Christian life. Here he turns that list into a test: what do these qualities produce, and why is their outcome tied to knowing Christ?
Peter's first condition is that these qualities are "yours." They belong to the person, not to the occasion.
Notice that these things are to be in us and abound. They are not like garments put on us, for then they could be taken off on occasions. Like fruit, they are the product and expansion of the divine life within. If they abound in us, they prove us to be neither "barren" — or "idle" — "nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ."
Being present is not enough. Peter asks for increase, and increase has a source: a heart occupied with Christ.
But the apostle was led to seek more. He urges that these things should "abound" also. They do so where Christ dwells in the heart by faith… Christ is and must be the spring and strength of the heart for all that is acceptable to God. The exercise of the heart in the full confidence of Christ's love promotes growth in what is good. So these things are not only really present in the Christian. They also abound through dependence on His grace.
The first of Peter's two words describes a person who is doing nothing. (The ESV renders it "ineffective.")
What is the effect? They "make you not idle nor unfruitful for the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ." It was a change for the worse when the older version put "barren" in place of "idle." That change led many readers and preachers to guess what the difference could be between "barren" and "unfruitful." But there is no room for doubt or difficulty. Translators render this first word "idle" elsewhere, and they should do so here.
Idleness is not just a missed opportunity. God has given the believer a new nature and a new relationship, and idleness fits neither.
How unworthy to be idle! We stand in such a blessed relationship, and grace has given us a new nature so excellent that it turns away every evil thing. How unworthy to be fruitless, if we are branches in the True Vine! The Father prunes such branches so that they may bear more fruit (John 15:2; 1 Peter 1:17). "By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples" (John 15:8).
The fruit of this life runs in two directions.
Here the Apostle sets out the blessed effects of having these qualities. He also sets out the serious consequences for the one whose life lacks them. A life marked by these qualities would be a full and abundant life. This matches the Lord's desire that His sheep should not only have life but have it abundantly (John 10:10). So too our knowledge of the Lord Jesus would not be barren and unfruitful. A life of practical godliness bears fruit for God. It also brings usefulness and blessing to people.
Peter measures all this fruit by one standard: "the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ."
The end of every dealing of God with our souls is to make Christ better known to us. If a Christian goes on in the exercise of these three verses, you find about that person the fragrance of Christ. Peter felt that everything was sheer loss that did not lead the saints to a deeper knowledge of Christ. What puts us nearer to Christ has this effect: we feel how unlike Christ we are. It also draws us away from the world, so that we are more fit in character to pass through it.
- Given — these qualities are not clothing put on from outside. They grow out of the divine life already within.
- Grown — Peter wants them abounding, not just present. They abound where Christ dwells in the heart by faith.
- Idle — the older word "barren" hid the plain sense. The failure Peter warns against is doing nothing.
- Fruitful — such a life is full and abundant. It bears fruit for God and brings blessing to people.
- Christ known — the whole line ends in knowing Him better. That is the aim of every dealing God has with us.
for he with whom these things are not present is blind, short-sighted, and has forgotten the purging of his former sins.
Peter has just listed the qualities a believer must add to faith and grow in. This verse turns the picture over. It describes the believer who lacks them. The loss is not eternal life. It is sight, and memory. Commentators press hard on what a Christian can forget and still be saved.
Peter aims the word "blind" at a Christian. One writer starts with the small word that links this verse to the one before, then names the cause:
"For" is the true connective here, not "but." How sad that such a description should apply to one bearing the Lord's name! ... What a fall from divine privilege to be "blind," or even short-sighted! It is the lack of spiritual perception. It comes from neglecting communion with God. It is the result of habitual indifference and self-seeking, which slights Christ and grieves the Spirit.
The verse calls him "nearsighted." The eye still works, but only on what is close:
The next word, "shortsighted," explains it. The heavenly things, the things far off, are no longer what the eyes of the heart look at. So the things that are near, the things before all mankind, absorb the mind. It is a worldly spirit actively at work after the things of the world, and not those which the Father loves.
One writer presses the question: what has such a person actually forgotten?
You will say this is a backslider. Not at all! He is confident about his eternal salvation... Has he forgotten that his old sins were purged away? Not a bit! He has forgotten that he was purged away from his old sins — his habits and ways of life when unsaved. So he has turned back to them again and got back into the world. He has lost the sense of what Christianity is, as a heavenly thing.
Another writer makes the point with a picture from home:
It is a question of practice. Suppose my child is dressed to go with me to pay a visit, but he runs out into the mud. "Oh," I say, "you have forgotten that you were dressed to go with me."
One writer weighs the inward loss:
It is not that a soul here denies the truth of the gospel, or opposes his justification by faith in Christ and His work. But the enjoyment of peace with God is gone. This is because the Holy Spirit no longer gives present witness to his spirit that he is a child of God. Instead He testifies to his inconsistent and evil state.
Another writer follows where this ends:
The one who lacks these qualities of the godly life falls into spiritual blindness, even though he possesses life. He will not only lose sight of coming glories; he will forget the mighty work by which he has been purged from his sins. If we fail to live the life of godliness, we shall lose sight of the coming glory, we shall slip back into the world around us, and fall into the very sins from which we have been cleansed.
How does the knowledge of Christ stop bearing fruit? Not by open attack, but by drift:
For the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ to be unfruitful goes against its very nature. The apostle says the only way it can happen is by forgetting it. It is impossible to live in these things without corresponding fruit. It is impossible to be in the sun without reflecting its beams. If we are not reflecting them, we must have got out of them... A soul in the joy of a Saviour's love would resist an open assault by the enemy. But other things can slowly wean that same soul away from that joy — the call of imagined duties, the necessary occupation with the things of the world, the cares of this life, and the deceitfulness of riches.
So what keeps a believer clear-eyed?
How easy it is to drop into a state of spiritual blindness and forgetfulness! No amount of knowledge, either of doctrine or of the letter of Scripture, will preserve the soul from this awful condition. Nothing but "the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ" will avail. This knowledge grows in the soul as we "give all diligence to add to our faith" the various graces the apostle refers to.
- Sight. Blindness here is lost spiritual perception. Its cause: neglected communion with God, habitual indifference, self-seeking.
- Range. Short-sightedness pushes heavenly things out of view. Near things fill the mind — the world's objects, not the Father's.
- Memory. He has not forgotten that his sins were purged; he has forgotten that he was purged away from them, and has gone back to his old habits.
- Cost. He does not deny the gospel, but his enjoyment of peace with God is gone, and the coming glory is out of sight.
- Recovery. Doctrinal knowledge cannot guard the soul. Diligence in adding these graces feeds the knowledge of Christ, and that keeps the eyes clear.
Wherefore the rather, brethren, use diligence to make your calling and election sure, for doing these things ye will never fall;
Peter has just listed the qualities that should grow in a believer's life, and now he draws his conclusion: be all the more diligent. But if God has already called and chosen us, what can we add to make that sure? (The commentators quote older translations, where "make your calling and election sure" is the ESV's "confirm your calling and election.")
The first thing to settle is where the uncertainty lies. It is not in God.
He speaks next of making our calling and election sure. But is this not sure already? As far as God, who has called and elected us, is concerned, it is sure. To be conscious of our calling and election, and sure of it, needs diligence. We must walk in the path the Holy Spirit has described so beautifully through the pen of Peter. Those who walk this way will not stumble, and at last, "there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ."
after_note: DELETE
Peter divides the work. One part is God's, the other is ours — and neglecting ours has a cost.
The calling and election is not of us, but of God; but the making it sure is not of God, but of us. The apostle clearly implies too, that if neglected we cannot wonder should we stumble or fall. Let us then challenge ourselves whether or not we are habitually making good what God has done for us.
Peter names two things, calling and election, but he asks for one kind of diligence. They are not two separate securities to be won one at a time.
Calling and election are united in the one thing to be secured, in the security they sought. They could not secure one without the other. They formed one object in the apostle's mind in the diligence he recommended. God had chosen; God had called them. Since God had chosen and called them, the diligence he recommended was to make this settled in their minds, and not uncertain.
Your own certainty is only half of it. The people watching you have nothing to go on but your life.
"But," you say, "how can we make our calling and election sure?" Who called us? Our Father. Who chose us? Our Father. But this does not do for other people. Who are you to make your calling and election sure with? With the One who called you? The One who chose you? Not a bit, but to yourself, and to everyone who watches you, everyone who could say, "You a called person? You do not look a bit like it. You a chosen person? No one would think so." You are to make it clear to the eyes of everyone else that you have been called of God like this.
The promise attached to the diligence needs care. Peter is not raising the question of losing salvation.
Read these verses carefully and notice that we do not read here of "falling away."
after_note: DELETE It says, "If you practice these qualities you will never fall." The believer may fall, though he does not fall away. Fall from what? From communion with God, from the pursuit of the excellent Christian qualities described in verses 5, 6, and 7 of our chapter. Fall to what? To spiritual blindness, to a dull heart, and to forgetting the wonderful cleansing and forgiveness that grace has made his own.
The man who wrote "you will never fall" had fallen himself, and never forgot it.
In one letter he says, "kept by the power of God through faith to salvation" (1 Peter 1:5). In the next letter he urges us to add to our faith: virtue, knowledge, self-control, patience, godliness, brotherly kindness and love... and says, "If you practice these qualities you will never fall." He always had the memory of his fall in his soul. The man who has fallen and been put right by God is just the one who can help those who may be getting a little astray... The one who has fallen, and been thoroughly broken and restored, is just the one the Lord will trust and use.
- God's part. The calling and the election are His alone, and on His side they are already settled — nothing you do adds to them.
- Your part. The making sure is yours. Diligence turns it into settled certainty in your own mind.
- One object. One diligence secures calling and election together, never one without the other.
- Your witnesses. What is sure inside must show outside. No one watching you should be able to say you do not look like a chosen person.
- Your safety. Falling here means falling out of communion into blindness and forgetfulness, not falling away. Peter himself fell, and God restored him to steady others.
for thus shall the entrance into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ be richly furnished unto you.
Peter has been urging diligence, and he ends with a promise. It raises two questions: what is the "eternal kingdom," and how can one believer's entrance be richer than another's?
The promise is not that some get in and others are shut out. Older translations read "an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly," and writers press the word abundantly rather than the word entrance.
The vitality and fruitfulness which mark the diligent believer not only give proof of his calling and election in the present, but are also full of promise for the future. Ahead of us lies "the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ," and though every Christian will enter that kingdom, it is the fruitful Christian who will have an abundant entrance, as verse 11 makes plain.
One distinction shapes this verse: the kingdom and heaven are not the same thing.
The "eternal kingdom" is not heaven. No one gains heaven as the result of diligence or fruitfulness; nor do some gain an abundant and others a meagre entrance there. There is no entrance into heaven except through the work of Christ. That work is perfect, and it is available alike to all who believe. So all who enter at all enter in the same way and on the same footing, without distinction.
The same writer explains the difference with a picture drawn from family life — a father who sorts his three sons into jobs by ability, yet seats them all alike at his own table.
The place we shall have in heaven will not be based upon our qualities or our efforts; we are accepted in the Beloved if we are accepted at all... But there is the kingdom, pictured in my illustration as the business sphere. The Lord Jesus in that day is going to use His saints in the administration of His kingdom. He is going to give ten cities to one, five cities to another, as stated in that well-known parable in Luke's Gospel. Here there is going to be a difference.
Since "these things" of verses 5 to 7 are what the promise hangs on, it matters which things they are. They are not the public gifts that put a person in front of others.
Every believer will be in the kingdom, but only those who live the life of godliness will have an abundant entrance. The Apostle is not speaking of preaching or teaching or the exercise of gifts, which are not given to all, and which may give prominence before others. He is speaking of the secret life of godliness, which is open to all... Those who are gifted, and much before the public eye, have most reason to beware. In the middle of constant engagements, constant preaching, and public work before men, they must not neglect the secret life of godliness before God.
One writer describes what this walk does for the traveller: a clear conscience and an open road.
Walking in the ways of God, we have part in that kingdom. We enter it with assurance and without difficulty. We do not feel the hesitation of soul felt by those who grieve the Holy Spirit, get a bad conscience, and allow themselves things that do not fit the character of the kingdom... The way is open before us: we see into the distance, and we go forward, with no obstacles in our way.
Commentators differ on the timing. One writer sees the entrance as present, not future.
He is clearly not speaking of a future entrance, but of what is present. The kingdom is the public sphere of Christianity. Anyone who truly enjoys Christ enters it in an abundant fulness of reality and blessing. He enters now what is everlasting.
Another writer sees a foretaste now of a kingdom that never ends.
Here again it is not a predicted fact that stands out, but the full realisation even now by the soul that walks blamelessly before God... One is in this way able to anticipate in rich measure the eternal kingdom... It is not pictured as a display of glory in reigning over the earth for a thousand years, blessed as that will be, but as what never changes. Scripture also reveals that His servants will serve Him, see His face, and reign for ever and ever.
One writer turns this into a daily question, using a ship coming into harbour.
Will your entrance and mine be an abundant entrance? Shall we enter like a trim and well-fitted ship coming into port in full sail? Shall we rather enter as a battered and tattered wreck? The answer to that is going to be given by each of us in the spiritual diligence — or the spiritual sloth and carelessness — that marks us day by day.
- Entrance — every believer enters the kingdom. The promise is about how you arrive, not whether you get in.
- Ground — the work of Christ alone brings anyone into heaven, on the same footing for all. This verse does not turn salvation into a wage.
- Character — what makes the entrance abundant is the quiet life of godliness, open to all. It is not public gift or platform.
- Path — that walk keeps the conscience clear and the road open, so the kingdom's door opens wide.
- Arrival — will you come into harbour in full sail, or as a wreck? Today's diligence writes the answer.