Itis not fit that heaven should take all the pains to bring earth to it; earth must do somewhat to bring itself to heaven. God’s bountifulness is beyond our thankfulness; yet thankfulness is not enough; there is matter of labour in it. If the lord of a manor have given thee a tree, thou wilt be at the charges to cut it down and carry it home. He who works first in thy conversion hath in wisdom made thee a second. Thou seest God’s bounty; now look to thine own duty.
I. Diligence. Here, first, for the quality. There is no matter wherein we hope for God in the event, accomplished without diligence in the act. He that expects a royalty in heaven must admit a service on earth. The good man is weary of doing nothing, for nothing is so laborious as idleness. Satan’s employment is prevented when he finds thee well employed before he comes. It is observable that albeit the Romans were so idle as to make idleness a god, yet they allowed not that idle idol a temple within the city, but without the walls. There are four marks and helps of diligence:
1. Vigilance. A serious project, which we can hardly drive to our desired issue, takes sleep from our eyes.
2. Carefulness (Ecc_5:1).
3. Love. This diligence must fetch the life from affection, and be moved with the love of virtue.
4. Study (2Ti_2:15).
II. Give diligence. Not a pragmatical business in others’ affairs; but rectify thy diligence, confining it principally to thyself. Dress thine own garden, lest it be overrun with weeds.
III. All diligence. Here is the quantity--“all.”
1. The working up of salvation is no easy labour; thereto is requirable all diligence. Such a diligence respects so great an object, and such an object requires so great a diligence. Refuse no labour for such a reward. The best things are the hardliest come by (Mat_11:12). Spare no invention of wit, no intention of will, no contention of strength about it. Will we adventure our estates, our lives, to find out new lands where may be gold, and spend no diligence for that where we are sure there is gold, and such as cannot perish?
2. God requires “the whole duty of man” (Ecc_12:13); that is God’s due. What, nothing left for this world? Yes, moderate providence; the saving of souls hinders not provision for bodies, but furthers and blesses it (Mat_6:33). Follow thou Christ; the rest shall follow thee.
IV. beside this … add. Thus much for the addiction: now to the addition, wherein we find a concession, an accession that He requires--“add.” You have done something, yet there is a “besides.” I yield a beginning, I ask a proceeding (Heb_6:1). God’s arithmetic principally consists in addition. To give every man his own is but equity; but the addition of charity makes blessed. And as addition teaches us to add grace to grace, so there is a multiplication required to increase the effects of those graces in a multiplicity of good works. Knowledge not improved will be impaired. If there be no usury, we shall lose the principal. As in generation, so in regeneration, we must be growing up to a full stature in Christ (Eph_4:13). As a traveller passes from town to town till he come to his inn, so the Christian from virtue to virtue till he come to heaven. (Thos. Adams.)
The power of diligence
I. Now as to the homely virtue itself, “giving all diligence.” We all know what “diligence” means, but it is worth while to point out that the original meaning of the word is not so much diligence as haste. It is employed, for instance, to describe the eager swiftness with which the Virgin went to Elizabeth after the angel’s salutation and annunciation. It is the word employed to describe the murderous hurry with which Herodias came rushing in to the king to demand John the Baptist’s head. It is the word with which the apostle, left solitary in his prison, besought his sole trusty companion Timothy to “make haste so as to come to him before winter.” Thus, the first notion in the word is haste which crowds every moment with continuous effort, and lets no hindrances entangle the feet of the runner. When haste degenerates into hurry, and becomes agitation, it is weakness, not strength; it turns out superficial work, which has usually to be pulled to pieces and done over again, and it is sure to be followed by reaction of languid idleness. But the less we hurry the more should we hasten in running the race set before us. But, with this caution against spurious haste, we cannot too seriously lay to heart the solemn motives towise and well-directed haste. The moments granted to any of us are too few and precious to be let slip unused. The field to be cultivated is too wide and the possible harvest for the toiler too abundant, and the certain crop of weeds in the sluggard’s garden too poisonous, to allow dawdling to be considered a venial fault. Little progress will be made if we do not work as feeling that “thenight is far spent, the day is at hand.” The first element, then, in Christian diligence is economy of time as of most precious treasure, and the avoidance, as of a pestilence, of all procrastination. “Now is the accepted time.” “Wherefore, giving all haste, add to your faith.” Another of the phases of the virtue, which Peter here regards as sovereign, is represented in our translation of the word by “earnestness,” which is the parent of diligence. Earnestness is the sentiment, of which diligence is the expression. So the word is frequently translated. Hence we gather that no Christian growth is possible unless a man gives his mind to it. Dawdlers will do nothing. There must be fervour if there is to be growth. The engine that is giving off its steam in white puffs is not working at its full power. When we are most intent we are most silent. Earnestness is dumb, and therefore it is terrible. Again we come to the more familiar translation of the word as in tile text. “Diligence” is the panacea for all diseases of the Christian life. It is the homely virtue that leads to all success. If you want to be a strong Christian--that is to say, a happy man--you must bend your back to the work and “give all diligence.” Nobody goes to heaven in his sleep. No man becomes a vigorous Christian by any other course than “giving all diligence.” It is a homely virtue, but if in its homeliness we practised it, this church and our own souls would wear a different face from what it and they do to-day.
II. Note the wide field of action for this homely grace. First, note that in our text, “giving all diligence, add to your faith.” That is to say, unless you work with haste, with earnestness, and therefore with much putting forth of strength, your faith will not evolve the graces of character which is in it to bring forth. He has just been saying that God has “given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, and exceeding great and precious promises.” TheDivine gift, then, is everything that will help a man to live a high and godly life. And, says Peter, on this very account, because you have all these requisites for such a life already given you, see that you “bring besides into” the heap of gifts, as it were, that which you and only you can bring, namely, “all diligence.” The phrase implies that diligence is our contribution. “Diligence” makes faith fruitful. Diligence makes God’s gifts ours. Then, again, the apostle gives an even more remark able view of the possible field for this all-powerful diligence when he bids his readers exercise it in order to “make their calling and election sure.” If we desire that upon our Christian lives there shall shine the perpetual sunshine of an unclouded continence that we have the love and the favour of God, and that for us there is no condemnation, but only “acceptance in the beloved,” the short road to it is the well known and trite path of toil in the Christian life. Still further, one of the other writers of the New Testament gives us another field in which this virtue may expatiate, when the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews exhorts to diligence, in order to attain “the full assurance of hope.” The last of the fields in which this virtue finds exercise is expressed by our letter, when Peter says, “seeing that we look for such things, let us be diligent, that we may be found of Him in peace with out spot, and blameless.” If we are to be “found in peace,” we must be “found spotless,” and if we are to be “found spotless” we must be “diligent.” What a beautiful ideal of Christian life results from putting together all these items! A fruitful faith, a sure calling, a cloudless hope, a peaceful welcome, at last! (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
Diligence
1. That it is not enough to flee and abstain from our fleshly lusts, and so perform the duty of mortification, unless also we add unto the same, faith, virtue, knowledge, temperance, and the like Christian graces.
2. That naturally we are sluggish, slothful, and dull in the performance of holy duties, and therefore have need to be often roused up, admonished, and warned to perform our duty with all diligence.
3. That we cannot attain unto any of the graces of God’s Spirit without diligence, painful labour, and travail.
4. That the gifts and graces of God’s Spirit are worth the pains taking, worthy I say, both in regard of their nature and in regard of the recompense which we receive by them.
5. That neither the unlawful pleasures of this world are to be sought at all with any diligence, or the lawful pleasures and profits thereof with all diligence.
6. That this diligence which is required must be total, both inward and outward--=outward in every member of the body, inward in every faculty of the soul.
To the first I answer, that God doth require this great diligence in the apprehension and application of His benefits.
1. Because of the worth and excellency of His benefits.
2. Because of their inefficacy unto us if not apprehended and applied by us.
3. Because of the great profit which we shall reap thereby, being by us rightly apprehended and with all diligence applied.
4. Because of the great diligence which Satan and his adherents, the world and the flesh, do use to deprive us of the same.
5. Because the work is great, we unwieldy, our time both short and uncertain, yea, and not being diligently apprehended as they are diligently offered, they are not afterward so easily attained. (A. Symson.)
Christian diligence
I. The graces which we are here exhorted to cultivate.
II. The considerations by which these exhortations are enforced, By cultivating these various graces we shall show--
1. That our piety is not merely speculative and nominal.
2. They will contribute materially to our spiritual illumination.
3. A consciousness of our personal acceptance.
4. Perseverance in the face of temptations and difficulties.
5. A joyful and triumphant death. (Expository Outlines.)
A downright Christian
It was the saying of a shrewd thinker: “If it is worth while being a Christian at all, it is better to be a downright Christian.”
Activity necessary to piety
Topurity activity seems essential. Fill your room with the purest air, and shut it up for one month, and when you open it the air is foul. Its stagnation has made it impure. The same is true of water; no matter how pure it may be, let it become stagnant, and it grows fetid and deleterious. The spiritual world presents an analogy. Idleness is the stagnation of the mind, and, like that of the air and water, it breeds impurity. (Christian Armour.)
Connection with preccding verses
“As He hath given us all things needful for life and godliness (so), do you give all diligence,” etc. The oil and flame are given wholly by God’s grace, and “taken “by believers; their part is to trim their lamps. (A. R. Fausset, M. A.)
Practice necessary to perfection
Aneighbour near my study persists in practising upon the flute. He bores my ears as with an auger, and renders it almost an impossibility to think. Up and down his scale he runs remorselessly, until even the calamity of temporary deafness would almost be welcome to me. Yet he teaches me that I must practise if I would be perfect; must exercise myself unto godliness if I would be skilful; must, in fact, make myself familiar with the Word of God, with holy living, and saintly dying. Such practice, moreover, will be as charming as my neighbour’s flute is intolerable. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Exercise develops strength
Asin the body so is it in the soul, exercise develops strength. The Laplanders and the Patagonians are in climates almost equally cold. The Laplanders are a small race, the Patagonians a large one. What makes the difference? The Laplanders, supported by their reindeer, spend most of their time in indolence; the Patagonians are an active race, and spend much of their time in fishing and hunting. Hence the stunted development of the one, and the large dimensions of the other. It is thus grace expands by the activity of love. (C. Graham.)
Add.
Religion a principle of growth
Our age is writing “progress” on its banners. It bids us to forget the things that are behind, as incomplete and unsatisfactory, and to press toward those which are yet before us. We believe that the gospel, and it alone, adequately meets this deeply-seated craving of our times. Religion is a principle of perpetual progress. Setting before us, as the great end of our existence, and as the only perfect model of moral excellence, the Infinite Jehovah, it requires, and it also ministers an ever-growing conformity to Him. “Grow in grace,” is the apostle’s injunction to all recipients of that grace. It is the secret and rule of personal reform, constantly advancing, and of social amelioration, enfranchisement and elevation.
1. The Church needs in this age to be kept in mind of the great truth, that there remains yet much land to be possessed.
2. And if, from the peculiar state and needs of the churches, we turn to review the present aspect of the world, we seem to discover similar reasons why the churches should not, now at least, overlook the fact that the gospel is, to its obedient disciples, a principle of continuous advancement, a law of expansion and moral elevation. The world, falsely or with justice, is shouting its own progress, and promising in the advance ment of the masses, the moral development of the individual. It is an age of rapid discovery in the physical sciences. The laws and uses of matter receive profound investigation, and each day are practically applied with some new success. Yet physical science can certainly neither create nor replace moral truth. The crucible of the chemist cannot disintegrate the human soul, or evaporate the moral law. But besides these advances in physical science, our age is one of wondrous political revolutions. It is again, even in lands and governments where political revolution is not needed or is not desired, an age of social reform.
3. And now, having seen how in the aspects, both secular and ecclesiastical, of our age, Christians were especially summoned to evolve what of progression there was in their own faith, let us see how in the inspired presentations of that faith, the fullest provision is made for man’s moral growth. Were there no other precept: “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect,” would be sufficient to show how a limitless expansion of our intellectual and moral stature was set before us in the gospel. To man, the heir of immortality, it prescribes the law and warrants the hope of an immortal progression. There are stages in Christian attainment; and one but prepares for another, and, without all, the Christian cannot be fully useful or perfectly blessed.
4. From the word “add,” a heedless reader might infer that all the graces thus clustered were independent each of the other, and might be selected or omitted as each disciple saw fit; and that a man might at least be safe in having but the first, though in his negligence lacking all the rest. But such is not the apostle’s meaning. The believer is called upon to furnish not a single and isolated grace, but to supply “adding “one to another, the whole consenting train, and harmonious interwoven troop, the complete sisterly choir of Christian graces. He is to look upon the one in this cluster of Christian excellences as fragmentary and untuned without the others. The one grace is the supplement and complement indispensable to the symmetry and melody of all its sister graces. Now in this choir or train Faith is the elder born, and upon it all these other graces depend. It alone justifies, but as the old theologians were fond of saying, not being alone. It comes singly to the task of man’s justification, but in the heart and life of the justified man it does not come as a solitary, building there its lonely hermitage. (W. R. Williams.)
Christian growth
Theword which has been translated “add “is a very pictorial term, and refers to a choir of well-trained musicians. The musical illustration of Christian growth is a very pro found and far-reaching one. Keats says that “heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter,” implying that there is a music which appeals to the soul finer than anything that can be expressed by human voice or musical instrument. Beethoven was deaf, heard no outward sounds, but the soul of music was in him, and therefore with the deeper inner ear he heard continuously the Divine music to which all things are attuned. Music is the great principle of order. It enters into the essence of all things. The music of the spheres is not a mere poetic, but a scientific phrase. Everything speaks to the ear of the thoughtful of the wonderful rhythm of the universe. What nature does unconsciously and willlessly, we are to do consciously and willingly. We are to keep step and time to the music of the universe--and to add to our faith virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, godliness, brotherly kindness, and charity--and thus practically make the statutes of the Lord our song in the house of our pilgrimage. 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. Whether, therefore, we take our illustration from architecture or from plant life, the essential point, as implied by the significance of the word “add” in the original, is that growth should be harmonious. Architecture is said to be “frozen music.” This is true of the commonest wayside wall. What is it that makes the sight of a well-built wall so pleasing to the eye? What is it that makes building a wall such an interesting employment that children take instinctively to it? Is it not the love of symmetry--the delight in shaping large and small, rough and smooth, pieces of stone, adapting them one to the other, and placing them in such a way that together they make a symmetrical structure? And if we see this curious harmony in the humblest rustic building, how grandly does it come out in the magnificent Gothic cathedral, where every part blends faultlessly and carries out the design of the architect; and clustered pillar, and aerial arch, and groined roof soar up in matchless symmetry, and the soul is held spellbound by the poetry which speaks through the entire structure! There is a remarkable peculiarity in the text in the original which must be specially pointed out. The preposition which we have translated “to” should be rendered “in,” and so rendered, we are significantly taught, that Christian growth is not by mechanical addition, but by vital increase. We are to add not “to” our faith, but “in” our faith, virtue, and “in” our virtue, knowledge, and so on. The first thing that we are commanded by the apostle to “add” to our faith is virtue, meaning by this term vigour, manliness. 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. 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. 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 wisdom from above includes not only the knowledge that we are pardoned sinners, but also all that can furnish the understanding and fill the soul with food for its high capacities and boundless appetites. 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. Temperance gives us just estimates of ourselves and of the world. It gives us the true knowledge of all things. It enables us to use our knowledge aright, to convert thought into action, and vision into life. We are to know ourselves and our relations to God’s Word in order to regulate our life accordingly. To this self-government we must add patience. 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. 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. We wrong God when we are unkind, ungenerous, and uncourteous to each other. 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 to charity. In our brotherly kindness we are to exercise a large-hearted charity. Such, then, are thegraces 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. This is the ideal of a perfect Christian character. It must have these parts; it must be characterised by these qualities, These are the fruits of the Spirit. These are the products of genuine faith. They are not like the links of an iron chain, manufactured separately, and mechanically added to each other; but they are like the living cells of a growing plant, in which one cell gives birth to another, and communicates its own qualities to it.(H. Macmillan, D. D.)
An apostle’s method of silencing objectors
“Add to your faith virtue.” “You have faith.” This is assumed, you perceive. “Now,” says the apostle, “let your faith be associated with virtue.” The word is used in only three passages in the New Testament. It is a word derived from the name of the Greek god of war, and hence would give some countenance to those who would simply make it to mean fortitude, or courage. Others take it in another sense, by associating it with rectitude of conduct--everything that is “lovely and of good report,” in conduct. For my part, I do not see how we can do without either meaning. The apostle speaks, in one of his passages, of our being “a chosen people, a royal priesthood, to show forth the virtues of Him who hath called us” that is, “to show forth the praises”; so to exhibit God in connection with our faith in His Son, that men may praise Him, seeing how His name and His law are magnified in the work of redeeming love. In another passage, in the Philippians, the Apostle Paul uses, in a more general sense, the same word: “If there be any virtue”--if there be anything at all commendable. Now, I think, we must look at the word as having both these senses. “See,” the apostle says, “that your profession of faith is in connection with such conduct that the name of God may be magnified in you and by you.” But, then, why should we exclude the idea of courage?Right conduct in the midst of evil men; consistency of conduct in the midst of a world lying in the wicked one; forgetting all distinctions of time, or country, or circumstances, to take God’s mercy, and apply it to our own souls; to accept Christ as God’s well-beloved Son; to look right into the grave, and think of the judgment-seat will require fortitude; and take the word, in whatever sense you please, fortitude and courage and rectitude of conduct must, says the apostle, be associated with your profession of faith in Christ Jesus. But then the apostle says we are to associate also “knowledge”; that is, he enjoins upon us to be intelligent professors of faith in Christ Jesus. God puts none of our faculties under ban; God does not ask any man whom He has endowed with faculties, by which He may be glorified by His creature, to keep them in abeyance, to leave them uncultivated. We are to have the soul filled with wisdom from above, and to seek all kinds of wisdom, that we may consecrate them to the service of God. And mark how necessary it is for the believer in Christ Jesus ever to be growing in intelligence. New errors creep into the Church; new forms of error are presented to the believer. He is not to be satisfied with the instruction which God blessed to the bringing him into living relationship with Christ Jesus. We ought, as a matter of conscience, and as a matter of duty, to seek to increase our intelligence, that we may be ready always to give an answer to every man, and a reason of a hope that is in us. And then the apostle enjoins “temperance” upon us. The simple meaning of the idea is self-government, or self-restraint, rather. This was one of the virtues which the Grecian philosophers laid great stress upon, in this general sense, not simply in eating and drinking, but in everything that referred to the passions of men. As the apostle says, “Be angry, and sin not.” If there is just cause of anger, we are to be moderate in our anger. And the Apostle Paul speaks of persons who are “lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God”; that is, they are not temperate in their pleasures. There is nothing contradictory between this temperance and earnestness. Now, a man may be earnest without intelligence; he may be zealously affected even in a bad cause; but temperance--prudence, that is, moderation in our views, and in the mode of carrying out our views--may be found in connection with great earnestness. But, then, to “temperance” we are to add “patience.” Even when you regulate yourselves most, and have your spirits under the directing influences of the Spirit of God, you cannot possibly live and act for Christ without finding some difficulties. “But,” says the apostle, “just quietly endure all things; just patiently persevere in all that concerns your Christian course.” “And, then,” says the apostle, “associate also with these things godliness.” The word means certain acts of worship presented to God; but it means more than this, it means a reverential spirit, by which our acts of worship are regulated. Is it not remarkable how much our religious worship is dependent upon certain influences, certain associations, certain circumstances? You perceive a man who has associated early in life with persons who frequent the house of God, and he contracts a kind of habit, and it is a long while before he can shake off this habit. Now, just change a man’s position in society; see what the increase of this world’s goods will do for a man; you see him slackening his attendance at the house of God, and leaving certain acts of worship that he once regularly engaged in. I have seen men who rigidly observed certain outward acts of worship when they were at home. I have seen them give the lamentable proof that it was all a matter of external influence. And therefore the apostle says, “Associate with everything that is right, everything that is virtuous in conduct, godliness”: that is, a devout and a reverential spirit, manifested in connection with your devotedness to Christ and Him crucified. But the apostle says, “Not simply towards God, but towards your fellow-men.” Christ Himself enjoined upon His disciples love towards each other, by which they should manifest that they loved Him. (J. Sherlock.)
Additions to faith
I. The additions which you are to make to your faith. The apostle does not exhort Christians to seek after faith. This he supposes them to possess already. You say you have faith--but faith without works is dead, being alone. Faith resembles a foundation, of high importance in case of a building, but useless ii no superstructure be reared. It is only a beginning, which is nothing without progress. What are clear notions unless they influence; or proper motives unless they impel? Moses had faith, and he esteemed the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt.
1. The first addition which he requires of you as believers is virtue--courage. This principle in the whole of your Christian course will be found indispensably necessary. You live in a world unfriendly to religion. It will be found no easy thing to deny yourselves and take up your cross, to pluck out a right eye. Some of these difficulties, indeed, might be avoided if you were only to be religious and not to appear so. If we trace things to their origin we shall find a thousand evils springing, not from ignorance but cowardice. Pilate condemned a Saviour of whose innocency he was conscious because of the Jews. Many of the Pharisees “believed on Him, but feared to confess Him lest they should be put out of the synagogue.” The disciples were afraid and forsook Him.
2. A second addition is knowledge. And this very properly follows the former. It teaches us that courage is a force which wisdom is to employ; courage may urge us to undertake the war, but judgment is to manage it. And hence it will be easy to determine the nature of this qualification. It is practical knowledge; it is what we commonly mean by prudence, which is knowledge applied to action. It is what Paul recommends when he says, “Be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is. Walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise. Walk in wisdom towards them that axe without, redeeming the time.” This kind of knowledge results principally from experience and observation; and he is blameable indeed who does not grow wiser as he grows older, and who does not make every day a correction of the former. Our own history affords us some of the best materials to improve and embellish our character. We should derive strength from our weaknesses, and firmness from our falls. But, alas I what numbers are there upon whom the continuance of life and all means of improvement seem to be thrown away. They have eyes, but they see not; ears have they, but they hear not. Whereas “the wisdom of the prudent is to understand his way.” “The prudent man looketh well to his going.” He draws down his knowledge from speculation, and uses it in common life. He judges of the value of his notions by their utility. He studies his character and condition. He examines his dangers, his talents, his opportunities.
3. You are to avoid intemperance. There is a sense in which this word may be applied to the mind as well as the body.
4. You are to add to your temperance patience. There is an obvious and striking relation between these. The one requires us to bear, the other to forbear. The one regards the good things, the other the evil things of the world. By temperance we are preserved under the smiles of prosperity, and by patience we encounter the frowns of adversity.
5. Godliness is indispensable. Courage and prudence, temperance and patience, would be no Christian qualities, if in the exercise of them we were not influenced by suitable regards to God. Without this reference our religion is nothing more than morality.
6. We are to add to godliness brotherly kindness.
7. To brotherly kindness, charity.
II. Inquire how this is to be accomplished. The apostle tells us. It is by giving all diligence.
1. These things deserve your diligence. It is pitiable to see men employing their zeal and consuming their strength upon trifles. But this cannot be said of spiritual blessings and graces. These are in the sight of God of great price. They are necessary to man. They purify his passions, and tranquillise his conscience, They enrich, they dignify him, they are his perfection. They make him happy.
2. Diligence will infallibly secure these things.
3. There is no attaining these things without diligence. Diligence is indispensable.
(1) Indispensable if we appeal to analogy. You must labour even for “the meat that perisheth.”
(2) Indispensable if we appeal to the character of a Christian. He is a merchant, a scholar, a husbandman, a traveller, a soldier--the anxiety of the merchant, the application of the scholar, the hardy toil of the husbandman, the wearying progress of the traveller, the painful exercise of the soldier, are images which ill accord with indolence and ease.
(3) Indispensable if we appeal to the promises of the gospel. These all require it, encourage it, produce it. (W. Jay.)
The Christian chorus
Theword translated “add” takes us back to an old Grecian custom; it means to be a chorus-leader, to furnish a chorus at one’s own expense. The Greeks worshipped their gods through a hired chorus. When the poet had completed his work, he called upon the archon (or city mayor) to grant a chorus. He in turn appealed to a wealthy citizen called a choragus, who collected a chorus, hired a trainer, and in time rendered the poet’s composition to the delight of the citizens and the glory of the gods. As a reward he received a tripod, which he consecrated, and in some cases placed on a monument. The Athenian street lined with these memorials was called “the avenue of tripods.” Into this custom as a mould Peter pours the truth of God’s gift and man’s duty. Verses 2-4 set forth God’s gift to man, the composition of Jehovah, the sacred score, the expression of His life and love. Grace and peace are allotted to us; they are not obtained by effort, but are gifts of God. All that pertains to life and godliness comes through precious promises. He who takes the promises of faith takes the life of God into his soul. Here stands the poet with his finished work, pleading for a chance to help the people and honour the gods. He has put himself into the composition, it is as yet only a promise of harmony; the chorus is organised, trained, the people gather, the soul of the composer finds expression, the people are inspired to nobler lives, the gods are glorified. Until the archon accepts the poet’s promise, and the chorus renders it, the poet is dumb. God has given Himself in great and precious promises, completed His work, and now calls upon men to accept and fill the universe with Divine harmony. Verses 5-7 give us man’s duty growing out of God’s gift. His work is the inspiration to, not the substitute for our work. God operates, man must co-operate. The air is free, therefore breathe it; the earth is rich, therefore till it; the seed is vital, sow it; the sea is wide, launch out upon it. Opportunity means duty; gifts bring obligations. Peter is writing to Christians--to “them that have obtained like precious faith.” Faith is a present possession, something assumed, to which other things are to be added. Yet faith is but one grace, one instrument in chorus; without it the others are useless; with it alone you can never render God’s composition. A solo is not a chorus. Beethoven and Wagner cannot be rendered by one instrument; much less can God be set forth by one virtue. “Add to your faith virtue.” Not virtue in the narrow sense of moral excellence, but of the energy which Christians are to exhibit, as God exerts His energy upon them. Faith in “the God and Father of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ” must be an energetic faith. The verb of life is passive toward God, but active toward men. The poet threw himself into his composition; the chorus was simply to take in what he gave, and pour it out upon others. God has put Himself into this gift of His; receiving it we are to yield our powers to it, and let His energy control us. A lazy Christian is a contradiction in terms. “And to energy knowledge”--intelligence, understanding, spiritual discernment. This looks two ways: understanding of truth, and discernment of what is right and wrong in life. As the years go by we should “know more and more of God’s will as made known in His Word. Astronomy is ever finding new stars. Christians should find new depths, new heights, and new breadths in God’s Word as the years go by. “And to knowledge temperance”--self-control, the virtue of one who masters his desires and passions. Keep the beast beneath the saddle. Eyegate and eargate must be guarded lest the enemy capture man’s soul, and the door of speech be kept; for “If any man offend not in word,” etc. “And to self-control patience”--the characteristic of a man who is unswerved from his deliberate purpose and his loyalty to faith and piety by even the greatest trials and sufferings. Not only endurance of the inevitable, but the heroic, brave patience, with which a Christian not only bears but contends. Faith, energy, self-control count for little unless you endure; there are many Galatian Christians, who run well for a time; but the crowns are given to men who complete the race. Quick response on the part of the soil is no guarantee of a harvest; depth is as needful as willingness. “And to patience godliness”--reverence, respect, piety toward God; the confession of human dependence upon God manifested in conduct and conversation. Having faith, energy, self-control, and patience, there is danger lest we lose the fine sense of reverence; danger that we become irreverent. At the beginning of the Christian fife there is an awful sense of God; in too many cases this wears off, we become familiar with and degrade holy things and places, forget to bow in prayer, to close the eyes in worship. “And to godliness brotherly kindness”--love of the brethren. Nearness to Christ as the head means nearness to one another as members in particular; the muscles that bind the members to the head bind them to one another; the nerves that give the head control of the members are nerves of mutual icy and suffering. Godliness cannot be solitary and selfish, but must be social and unselfish; he who loves God must love his brother also. “And to brotherly kindness charity”--love, the broad affection which should characterise Christians, the love of men as men, “God is love.” The object of God’s love is the world; likeness to God means love to all mankind. Paul calls it the bond of perfectness, the sash which binds all other graces into place, the girdle over all; here it is the last instrument; without it you cannot render God’s composition to the world. The first is faith” in God, the last is love to man, for faith in God begets His likeness in us. Yonder is God, the great composer, bidding us render His composition. What powers He must see in us; what confidence in our powers He must have; what a calling is ours! When St. Cecilia played the angels responded; well may they respond when human powers are counted worthy to render God’s opera. Oh, men and women, rise to the dignity of your powers and possibilities! God waits for expression, angels wait to hear God expressed. There are eight instruments called for, the octave, the perfection of harmony; though the chorus be what no man can number, yet at the heart of it is the octave, and God calls on each man to use the powers in himself; each man has the octave in himself, and is called upon to chorus his powers, to train his gifts. Then we have (verse 8) the consequences of faithful service. Grace and peace are multiplied through knowledge, and knowledge comes through faithful use of these powers. The musician who gives himself to the works of the master gains knowledge of the score, and is transformed into a sort of human photograph, possessed by and giving out the genius of the composer. So the Christian who tries to render God’s composition comes into a fuller knowledge of it, sympathy with it; God’s thoughts become his thoughts, and God’s ways his ways; he no longer lives, but Christ lives in him. The composition controls the performer. On the other hand, “He that lacketh these things is blind,” etc. The word “blind” here carries with it a curious figure, “darkened by smoke.” Smoke-blinded, squinting his eyes up, forgetting thedoor of entrance and exit, bewildered, he gropes about searching in vain for the way out of sin. Refusing to give himself to God’s gift, to cultivate the Christian graces, his horizon narrows, his life shrinks; what he has mastered sinks from him: forgiveness forgotten, sin returns, and he is lost. Hear God’s call to constant practice, “Give diligence to make your calling and election sure.” God’s work is done, Christ has offered the finished opera; in grace as in nature the end of His work is the beginning of your work; where the composer stops the performer begins, and at this point the composer becomes dependent upon the performer. Enter diligently upon your part of the task; “by patient continuance in well-doing” thou shalt reach the final reward. And that is “an entrance shall be ministered unto you,” etc. “Ministered” is the passive of the same verb that is translated “add” in ver.
5. As the city honoured the man who assumed the burden of the chorus, giving him a public triumph, rearing for him a tripod on the broad avenue, so God shall minister to those who chorus His works of grace mighty triumph in the kingdom of His Son. (O. P. Gifford.)
Apostolic Christianity
Men are very fond of looking at the Divine government from that side where it can be the least seen, and where they are most subject to the errors of their own fluctuating imaginations, and to the obscurities of philosophy, falsely so called. It is far better, wherever we can, to look at the great truths of the Divine moral government, at the mystery of God’s dealing with men in this world, from the human side. And this is what is done in this passage. It is, in brief, the inspired disclosure of the purposes of God in respect to men. What it is that the grace of God is attempting to do with those who are called in the Lord Jesus Christ, is set forth. We are called of God. In our version it is “to glory and virtue,” but in the original it is “by glory and virtue,” as if the call was not by the nature of man, but by the nature of God. By His own being, by the glorious and virtuous power of His own Spirit, He calls us up out of our lower life--out of that nature of ours which is physical. The apostle goes on to say, “On account of this, giving all diligence.” You are called. The call is one which is to be answered. There is to be working together of the inspiration of the Divine Spirit and human endeavour, “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God which worketh in you.” “On account of this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue.” What is faith? Supersensuousness. Well, what is supersensuousness? It is all that truth which exists beyond the discermnent of the senses. Now the apostle says, “Add to that faith virtue.” “Add to this vision-seeing tendency of yours, which may etherealise itself and go off in a cloudy dream--add to this the practice of a wise and righteous kind. Add to your faith virtue, in the old Roman sense--true manhood.” By the way, I have jumped a thought. It does not say “add to” in the original; it says, “Provide,” or “develop in.” It is as if he had had in his mind the thought of a plant. “Add to your faith, or in your faith, virtue; in other words, develop out of your faith virtue that is, practical godliness; and in your virtue or front out of your virtue, develop knowledge.” By this is not meant, evidently, that knowledge which we gather by our senses--scientific knowledge, ideas, facts; but a higher knowledge that subtle intuition of truth which men have who live high and noble lives. That which is meant by temperance is self-government. And in temperance, or front it, develop patience--endurance--the spirit of bold, quiet waiting. “And to patience, godliness.” That is, let your patience be not stoical. Let it not be stubborn, sulky. Let it be the waiting and endurance of a man who believes that God reigns, and that all the affairs of the universe are in His hands, and shall work toward good. “And to godliness, brotherly kindness.” That is, let there be in your godliness a warm sympathy and affection, not only for yourself, but for your family, for all your near neighbours, for all your neighbours that are more remote, for all your townspeople, for all the world. “And to brotherly kindness, charity.” Local affection and universal affection--add these. Here, then, is the apostle’s conception of a Christian man’s character, development, and destiny; and I remark--
I. This ideal destiny of man is one that shall lead hint into the likeness, into the sympathy, and into the participation of the Divine nature. The reason why we know so little of the Divine nature is, that we have so little ill ourselves that interprets it to us. I have groped to see if there are not at least some traces along the line of this march, and I think I see some. I observe, for instance, in the progress of the lower animal in man up toward the higher, that when it reaches the human race, the difference between undeveloped men and men who are developed, is the power to discern the invisible. That is, men whose forces are muscular are inferior to men whose forces are mental. And when the apostle says that we are to be partakers of the Divine nature, I say that the declaration is in harmony with everything that I see going on in human nature. We rise away from the animal toward the spiritual. We advance from lower manhood to higher manhood. The line is from the flesh toward the spirit. Therefore, it might naturally be expected that Christian character would consummate itself in the development of the Divine nature. That is the highest form of spiritual existence, and when the apostle says this is so, I am prepared to receive it, and to rejoice over it.
II. No man was ever converted to Christianity at one flash. No man ever built a house at a single blow, except in a summer dream. The conversion by which the Spirit of God starts a man, just starts him--that is all. It turns him away from the wrong direction. It turns him toward the right model. It gives his heart an inspiration for things higher, and then says to him, “Work out your salvation.” A man who has a musical ear goes into a workshop and sees lying there large quantities of material of various kinds--iron, and steel, and copper, and brass--and he says, “.Let me make these available.” And he takes the various kinds of metal, and puts them into a furnace and melts them, and pours the liquid which they form into a mould; and when it is cool and brought out it is a bell. Such is the result of the combination of all these incoherent substances. And when it is struck it is musical. And he says, “I have hit it! It is perfect!” But it is a monotone; and after some thought he says. “No, I have not reached perfection yet. There is more material here. What if I should make another bell?” So he goes to work and makes a second bell. And then he makes a third; and then a fourth. And some musician says, “Hang them up in yonder tower,” and they are lifted up into the tower; and, swinging there, they ring out through the air glorious chants which call men to God’s house. God has lifted up the spire or tower of the human soul, and has set in it some thirty bells; and they are all to be brought into accord. There are two or three that strike bass notes musically; but it is our business to bring harmony into the whole mighty collection of musical instruments that are swinging in the belfry of man’s soul. No man is perfect until all his faculties are brought into harmonious play. God never put a faculty into a man which was not necessary; and if we are to be perfect, every one of our faculties must be developed and used. As God looks upon men, they are not perfect until they are built up into the lines and lineaments of the Lord Jesus Christ, and have partaken in part of the Divine nature. Then they are sons of God; and to be a son of God is something transcendently glorious.
III. The glorious ideal of Christianity, compared with all the current ideas, stands up in bright and rebuking contrast. How many are calling men to church-membership! How many are calling men to morality! How many men are called to philosophy! How many men are called to philanthropy! But such is not the call of God. God calls men to be partakers of the Divine nature. And the providence of Divine grace is working on that pattern incessantly. What the gardener means, and what Nature means, are very different things. What the grape-vine means is to drive out its branches, rank and strong, far and wide. What the gardener means is grapes; and therefore he cuts back the vine on every side. “Let me grow,” says the vine. “Bear,” says the vintner. “Give me more room for my leaves,” says the vine. “Then give me more grapes for my wine,” says the gardener. Men in this world are seeking to develop forces that shall be for their pleasure. God is meeting those who are His own with blows at every step, and beating them back. He is tempering this man’s zeal by various shames. He is subjecting another man to such tests as shall compel him to come to endurance. In various ways God’s providence is meddling with us. We are all praying that God’s will may be done; but we do not like the answer to our prayer when it comes. The soul is a temple, anal God is silently building it by night and by day. Precious thoughts are building it. Disinterested love is building it. Joy in the Holy Ghost is building it. All-penetrating faith is building it. Gentleness, and meekness, and sweet solicitude, and sympathy are building it. All virtue and all goodness are workmen upon that invisible temple which every man is. “Ye are the temple of God.” The foundations are laid, the lines are drawn, and silently, night and day, the walls are carried up, tier after tier being laid; and when the temple is built it shall seem as if it were composed of precious stones--of beryl, and amethyst, and topaz, and diamond--so that at last when it is completed, and there comes the shout of “Grace, grace, unto it,” it shall be a temple built in darkness to reveal light; built in sorrow to produce a joy which shall never die.
IV. If these views are generally correct, we may see in them the correction of many of the popular sayings and tendencies of the day. I am met at every step by those who say, “I ought to conform to the laws of my being.” Which way is the eagle’s nature, where he lies in his nest, or where he is, in the might of his power, poised under the sun, on a summer day? Is a man’s nature that which he is born to, or that which he comes to by unfolding? Is a man’s nature that which is furthest from, or nearest to, that which God meant should be the final estate to which he is to come? A man’s real nature lies far beyond his present sphere. Nature in a man is not what he came from, but what he is going to. I am not, therefore, to take my models and patterns from behind; but this one thing I am to do--I am to forget the things which are behind, and to look on beyond, and to take my conceptions of true manhood and noble nature from the ideals which I form of God- and they are interpreted in my experience by God’s Spirit. (H. W. Beecher.)
Combination of Christian graces
You would think that flower-garden very defective which grew only one kind of flower, however beautiful that one may appear. It is the large variety of flowers that gives interest and pleasure in a garden. Thus, if you see a Christian with only one predominant grace, whatever it may be and however fine, he is lacking. It is the variety of graces, and their combination in the one life of experience and practice, that give charm and glory to Christian character, as it is the combination of colours that makes the light of the day. (James Hamilton, D. D.)
An incongruous addition
As it is always incongruous to see a mighty foundation with a trivial superstructure, a block of granite the basis, and a mud wall the building, a foundation of jasper, and the remaining corners all brick; so where there really is precious faith to begin with, you grieve that there should not be added courage, knowledge, temperance; but wood, hay, stubble, trivial tastes, narrow notions, sectarian prejudices, a sour or censorious spirit, and manifold infirmities of the flesh and spirit. (James Hamilton, D. D.)
Faith.--
Faith the root of Christian life
When the Vatican issued the celebrated Bull Unigenitus, the occasion of so many scandals, and of such protracted controversy, and in which it condemned, as abounding with most portentous errors, the excellent commentary upon the New Testament of the pious Father Quesnel, it selected as one of those errors, a remark of the good Jansenist upon the chapter before us, that “Faith is the first of graces, and the source of every other.” And yet what else than this very sentiment does the language of the apostle here suggest? Faith is put by him first in order; and is it not so put by Peter’s Lord? (Joh_3:36.)
I. Faith, in its widest sense, is trust or belief; confidence in the word, character, or work of another. Though requisite in religion, it is as much requisite elsewhere. Human society in its whole framework is so held together; and the kindreds and amusements and business of the world are presenting to the most earthly-minded, continual images and intimations of that faith which, when demanded of him by the Church and by the Word of God, he may sometimes affect to regard as strange and unexampled. The generous confidence of soldiers in a tried and heroic leader; the implicit confidence of his correspondents in a merchant of known means, and of proved integrity; the trust of the voyager in the intelligence and vigilance of the navigator; the unshaken assurance of a friend in the worth and affection of one whom he has long known and intimately loved--these are all but examples, in daily recurrence, of the use and the need, of the sweetness and of the power, of a reasonable faith and a well-placed trust. The faith of the gospel is something more than these, only as being trust in God. It is trust as to matters of higher concernment, and upon better warrant, and in a greater and better Being. It is a reliance on His true testimony. It is not irrational, for it has overwhelming evidence. Instead of its being, as the bigots of scepticism (for infidelity has its blind and bitter bigotry) represent it, a bandage for the eyes; and a manacle for the free hand, faith is really, to the eyes of the soul, a telescope bringing near the far glories of heaven: “the evidence of things not seen, and the substance of things hoped for.” And it is, to the hand, a clue leading our steps out of the mazy dungeon of sin, and through the labyrinth of earth. It is a magnet pointing the voyager to his desired haven; the charter, to the criminal, of an undeserved and full pardon. And as this faith is trust in the truth of the ever-truthful God, it is highest wisdom, as it is reliance on the Omnipresent, the Almighty, and the everlasting Jehovah, it is the surest, the only safety.
II. And should it be asked, why has it this priority in the Christian system, we answer, it may well occupy this place of precedency in the scheme of man’s salvation, for various reasons.
1. Man’s history required it. Unbelief, the opposite of faith, had the primary place in man’s fall and perdition.
2. It occupies the first place, again, from the nature, respectively, of God and man. He, as the Infinite and Omniscient, knows much which man, as the finite being of limited faculties and existence, can know only through His Divine testimony.
3. Again, God’s unutterable tenderness and goodness have assigned to faith this post of precedency. The babe, yet but a prattler, may have full trust in the parent who cherishes it. Before it can reason, or even speak, it may believe in its father and mother.
4. And man’s besetting sin--the pride which, after all the deep descent of the Fall, clings so persistently to him, however degraded, made it fitting, that the mode of his acceptance before God should be one that allowed no occasion for boasting.
III. But will not a scheme of salvation, thus free and indiscriminate, break down all virtue, and “the dignity of human nature,” and abolish law, and holiness, and truth? So, in all ages, objectors have argued. But the providence of God, and the history of the churches, have sufficiently answered these cavillings. The faith that justifies is implanted by a transforming Spirit, and reconciles to a holy and sin-hating Father, and unites to a Redeemer detesting and destroying iniquity. Whilst faith then accepts pardon as God’s free gift, it accepts as the inseparable concomitants of that pardon, penitence for sin, gratitude to the Giver, ingenuous love, adoption into the household of God, and assimilation to the Elder Brother--the Head of that household.
IV. From the necessity of its nature the implanted faith becomes a root of spiritual growth, and a principle of practical development. In its earlier stages faith is generally but feeble. That it should remain so, is not the will of Him who implants and who sustains it.
1. From the nature of faith, and of the human mind itself, faith, where well placed, on a trustworthy object, must grow and strengthen by exercise and continual repetition.
2. The growth set before our faith appears, again, from the character and structure of Scripture, the volume on whose testimonies faith fastens, and in whose rich pastures she must ever feed. God might have made it a book to be exhausted at one reading; or a record of the past, unavailing to the men of the present; or a mysterious outline of the future, of little clearness or usefulness till the times of its fulfilment had come. Instead of this, it is a book of all times, full of the ancient past, and the busy present, and the dread or gorgeous future. It has the simplest teachings interwoven inextricably with its most fathomless mysteries. Now, when faith is presented with such a manual, not to be mastered in weeks or years, but still evolving new lights to the latest studies of the longest lifetime, does not the structure of the book proclaim the intent of God, that faith should not sit down content with present attainments, and its as yet immature strength?
3. And so, too, the character of God Himself proclaims the same great law of the constant growth of faith. “Acquaint thyself with Him and be at peace,” is the demand of reason, no less than Scripture. Man has capacities and aspirations that the earthly, the perishable, the finite, and the sinful can never satisfy.
4. The office and character of the Holy Ghost, the Author of faith, point to the same results. The Saviour Himself described the influence of this Spirit’s indwelling “as a well of water” in the disciple “springing up into everlasting life.” (W. R. Williams.)
Faith
I. Its necessity.
1. Our apostle, to build the house of Christianity, lays this as the foundation. Philosophy lays her ground in reason, divinity in faith; the first voice of a Christian is, “I believe.”
2. The necessity of faith appears--
(1) In respect of God (Heb_11:6; Rom_10:14; Mat_8:13).
(2) In respect of the devil (1Pe_5:9). He is too strong for thee if thou meetest him with thy virtue, or with thy good works; for he will object sins enough to outweigh them. Solon cannot meet him with his justice, nor Solomon with his wisdom; every poor sinner can overcome him with his faith (Eph_6:16).
(3) In respect of thyself.
(a) Thou art ignorant. There is no understanding of God but by faith.
