Last Words Part 6
For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your
faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control,
and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and
godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if these qualities are yours and are
increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge
of our Lord Jesus Christ. For whoever lacks these qualities is so
nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his
former sins. Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to make your calling
and election sure, for if you practice these qualities you will never fall. For
in this way there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal
kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Therefore I intend always to
remind you of these qualities, though you know them and are established in the
truth that you have. I think it right, as long as I am in this body, to stir
you up by way of reminder, since I know that the putting off of my body will be
soon, as our Lord Jesus Christ made clear to me. (2Pe 1:5-14)
ESV
For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from
being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ
For if
Ok – a little technical stuff. The word “if” is not in the Greek text.
This is important because in the Greek text there is no
question of these qualities being in the men and women to whom Paul writes. Read it without the “If.”
For these qualities are
yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or
unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
The phrase "are yours" (humin
huparchonta) is a strong expression denoting that which actually exists as
one's possession.
One more technical change.
The NIV translates it this way:
8 For if you possess these
qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and
unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Literally it would be:
8 For if you continually possess these qualities
in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and
unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
My point in getting technical is that these are not
qualities you need to get – you have them by virtue of Christ Jesus and His
Spirit. These qualities are (and I’m
stepping out here) the qualities with which man was created and which became
corrupted in the fall. Now in Christ the
corruption of sin is removed and these qualities, long dormant and/or twisted,
can be accessed and grown to His glory.
As a friend of mine says, “You got ‘em, work ‘em.”
“are increasing”
πλεονάζω, pleonázō [to increase, abound]. Fruit will result when the preceding qualities
abound with fullness as the goal.
Practice – exercise.
Here’s a key. “Use ‘em or lose
‘em.” Is not a bad way of putting it. We
HAVE these qualities and so now, with the Spirit of God, we need to use
them. It appears from the next phrase
that the use of these qualities, their strengthening, broadening and focusing
have an unavoidable result.
Peter is exhorting every saint to choose now to allow Him to
express Himself through you. And it is a voluntary choice we must each make and
make each day...many times during the day. God won't force us to deny ourselves
and to set our mind on the things of the Spirit rather than the things of the
flesh. We each must do that. But oh the rewards for letting the Spirit fill us
and control us (Eph 5:18-note, Gal 5:16-note). The more we choose as His
bondservants to allow Jesus to be the Lord and Master of every area of our life,
the more these qualities will increase and superabound, bearing much fruit,
fruit that remains for eternity. Why are we so stubborn, hard headed,
rebellious and resistant to the Word and the Spirit when all God wants to do is
pour forth blessing upon our life! JC
“they keep you from being”
“keep” =
καθίστημι, kathístēmi ; to bring, make, cause (render). The basic sense 'to set down. 'To make someone something. (KTD)
The exercise
of these qualities “make us-not” . . . . or “they render you neither
ineffective nor unfruitful.”
“ineffective or unfruitful”
Ineffective
= ἀργός argós [idle]
Argós means: a.
'indolent,' 'useless,' 'unemployed,' and b. 'incapable of action. Without works that express faith and hence
'unserviceable'
Unfruitful =
ἄκαρπος, ákarpos
This is the
negative prefix “a” plus “karpos” –fruit.
Unfruitful,
bearing no fruit (Jud_1:12 [cf. Mat_13:22; Mar_4:19; Tit_3:14; 2Pe_1:8]; Sept.:
Jer_2:6). Unprofitable, producing bad fruit (1Co_14:14; Eph_5:11).
“in the (TRUE)
knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ”
Peter focuses our not being ineffective and/or unfruitful
one the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
In the Greek – and hence in the NASB we find the work “true”
in reference to the knowledge of which Peter writes. This is the word ἐπίγνωσις, epígnōsis.
Recognition, i.e. (by implication) full
discernment, acknowledgement: — (ac-)knowledge(-ing,
- ment). AV (20) - knowledge 16, acknowledging 3, acknowledgement 1;
I. precise and correct knowledge
A. Used in the NT of the knowledge of things ethical and
divine.
When we, as believers, servants of
the lord Jesus Christ actively and intentionally live out the righteousness He
has purchased for us we will be neither idle nor unfruitful in our true
knowledge of Him.
When we as humans actively and
intentionally live out the laws of gravity we do not fool around on heights –
we especially do not jump.
Here then is the point. Many if not most of us have an obscured
understanding of sin and salvation – not to mention sanctification. We also have a fickle sense of the
seriousness of sin and the purity of righteousness. Because of this, though we know the Lord and
Redeemer, our knowledge is not complete of as stable as it could be.
We – at one place or another in
our hearts and minds – are tossed and thrown by the winds and waves. It may be technically theological or it may
be pathetically practical but we all struggle.
Peter want us to understand and be
convicted by the fact that we have – restored, rediscovered, re-enlivened –
however you wish to say it—qualities whose practice/exercise will make the
truth of Christ clearer and clearer.
Through the Word and the Holy
Spirit we can practice these qualities as the practical means of strengthening
and broadening not only our security in Christ but our service to Christ as
well.
Next, the qualities --- but first
a look at the, “Now for this very reason also . . . “ we read in verse 5.
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