Grace Bible Church Gillette, Wyoming

(1) Since believers share in the divine nature, they will be able to exhibit certain attributes of God (communicable attributes). These attributes are what enable believers to live and please God in life and godliness.

(2) Salvation is faith alone in Christ alone without the believer’s works. However, sanctification is a cooperation between God and the believer. It is a cooperation between God’s divine nature in the believer and the believer’s obedience to God.

(3) Therefore, Peter explains that even though believers partake of the divine nature, they must “apply” (pareispherō – adding additional effort, do one’s very best) themselves to these attributes or virtues.

(4) “Diligence” (spoudê – genuine and active commitment, Rom 12:11) also suggests a cooperation with that which God has worked in the believer (cf. Php 2:12-13).

b) Add to your Faith

(1) The believer is to “supply” or add Christian virtues to his faith. The Greek word is epichorêgeō and brings the concept of leading a chorus. In other words, let these Christian virtues become a chorus to the believer’s faith.

(2) Notice that saving faith comes first. No sanctification or Christian virtues could be added to a person until they come to faith in Christ.

(3) Furthermore, a true believer will add virtues to his faith. In other words, a true believer will grow in his Christian life with Christian virtue. He will not remain stagnant.

(4) These Christian virtues are listed in verses 5 through 7. They are: moral excellence, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, brotherly kindness, and love.

c) Moral Excellence

(1) “Moral excellence” is the Greek word aretê conveys the idea of might, energy, moral courage, or a manifestation of moral power.

(2) For us it would mean a virtuous believer who pursues and obtains virtues or godly attributes in their life.

(3) Moral excellence, in Classical Greek, referred to the highest pursuit of man. It was a term that was used for moral heroism.

(4) Moral excellence is inherent to God (1Pe 2:9; 2Pe 1:3).

(5) Moral excellence is that which is praiseworthy by God (Php 4:8).

(6) Moral excellence was spiritual heroism modeled by Paul (Php 3:12-14).

2. Knowledge (5)

a) “Knowledge” is gnosis and means comprehension or intellectual understanding. God possesses all knowledge (omniscience) (Rom 11:33).

b) Peter would primarily be referring to knowledge of Christ revealed in God’s revealed Word (Col 2:3 cf. 2Co 4:6; 10:5; 2Pe 3:18).

(1) It would oppose the false knowledge of Gnosticism (1Ti 6:20).

(2) It would include not only knowledge of doctrine but also knowledge of duty. It would include the idea of knowing how to apply God’s truths to living (cf. 1Co 8:1).

(3) This practical knowledge is to accompany the exercise of the virtue, or moral heroism of faith, lest it run into unregulated zeal, inconsiderate obstinacy, or presumptuous daring. (Schaff)

3. Self-control (6)

a) Self-control (also called temperance) is the Greek word egkrateia and means restraint of one’s emotions, impulses, or desires (BDAG).

b) It was as an athletic term where the athlete was to exercise strict discipline to refrain from anything that would keep him from achieving his goals (1Co 9:25).

c) Paul spoke to Felix concerning righteousness, judgment, and self-control (Act 24:25).

d) Paul also included self-control in the “fruit of the Spirit” (Gal 5:22-23).

e) False teachers are sometimes characterized in the Bible as those whose teaching was divorced from their lifestyle (2Pe 2:1-3, 14-15, 18-19).

4. Perseverance (6)

a) “Perseverance” (hupomenê) means to “remain under.” It refers to being “steadfast adherence to a course of action in spite of difficulties and testings” (Fri).

b) Perseverance is not the merely accepting the inevitable, rather it is taking it headlong to see God’s purposes accomplished.

c) In the New Testament it seems always to carry with it the idea of …not the mere bearing of trials, but the courageous, persevering endurance of them - the brave patience with which the Christian contends against the various hindrances, persecutions, and temptations that befall him in his conflict with the inward and outward world. (Schaff).

d) God gives perseverance to the believer (Rom 15:5).

e) Through perseverance God is given His sovereign timing to perfect the believer in spiritual maturity (Jam 1:2-4).

5. Godliness (6)

a) “Godliness” (eusebia – lit. “good worship,” reverence and duty toward God). Godliness would include the believer’s attitude of worship toward God, especially as it plays out in godly behavior in every aspect of life.

b) Instead of viewing godliness as “god-likeness” the truer meaning of the word would be “god-wardness.”

c) Rather than attempting to imitate the character of God, godliness is concerned with fulfilling its religious duties to God.

d) Godliness should be the believer’s result in having the correct doctrine (1Ti 6:3) and as a response toward God’s power and judgment (2Pe 3:11).

e) False teachers may appear to have a form of godliness but in reality they deny that the power it comes from God (2Ti 3:5) and see it as a means of gain (1Ti 6:5).

6. Brotherly kindness (7)

a) The Greek word for “brotherly kindness” is philadelphia and means “brotherly love.” The city of Philadelphia is the city of brotherly love.

b) Those who worship well (godliness), worship and serve God. However, God tells us that worship for Him also includes love for the brethren (1Jo 4:20-21).

c) Perhaps Peter remembered what Jesus had answered the lawyer who tested Him in Mat 22:35-40 (cf. Rom 13:8-10). The whole Law hangs on love for God and love for one’s neighbor.

7. Love (7)

a) Love (agape – self sacrificial love) is to be extended not only to the household of faith but to all people (1Th 3:12; Gal 6:10).

b) There is indeed a love for the family of God, but there is also a love for the family of mankind (Joh 3:16).

c) This last virtue not only encompasses the others, but it is the most logical. For if love is from God then believers ought to have love for one another.

d) God demonstrated His love by sending His Son to be the propitiation for sins. Believers demonstrate their salvation by loving one another (1Jo 4:7-12).

III. OBSERVATIONS AND APPLICATIONS

A. Moral heroism…we are missing that in Christianity today.

1. Is there anyone willing to stand up for what is biblical and right?

2. Believers are not willing to stand up to other believers let alone the world.

3. It’s not old fashioned, its biblical.

4. "My goal has always been to make a difference in the biggest way possible, to be able to change as many lives as possible, to be able to encourage as many lives as possible and right now I don’t feel like that’s in politics," Tebow said. "But if, one day, I feel like that’s where I’m called to go, then that’s what I’ll do. I just don’t know if that’s the right road for me yet." Tim Tebow

B. Self-control is needed in spiritual growth for the believer.

1. If no commitment is made or kept, no progress will be gained.

2. Self-control is needed to refrain from those things that are either sinful or detrimental to spiritual growth.

3. Sometimes it is the good things that can become the enemy of the best things.

4. Self-mastery is to the world at large the opposite of liberty; to the Christian it is another name for it - that service which is perfect freedom. Ellicott

C. Love for all men

1. How do we love those in the world with all the evil in the world?

2. I believe the adage hate the sin but love the sinner applies.

3. We are to love and pray for our enemies (Mat 5:44).

a) We pity those blinded by Satan, for we were once there ourselves (2Co 4:4).

b) Lest we be the ones who are in darkness (1Jo 2:11).

c) We do not condone or participate in deeds of darkness, but expose them (Eph 5:11).

4. The ladder of Christian virtue must end in Christian love. Not even affection for the brethren is enough; the Christian must end with a love which is as wide as that love of God which causes his sun to rise on the just and on the unjust, and sends his rain on the evil and the good. The Christian must show to all men the love which God has shown to him. (Barclay).

Grace Bible Church · 4000 E. Collins Rd · PO Box #3762 · Gillette, WY · (307) 686-1516