Lesson 8
Second Peter
Warning against dangers
facing the Church
Review:
1:5 Now for this very reason
applying all diligence in the sphere of your faith generously supply the virtue
and the virtue, the knowledge.
1:6 and in your knowledge, self-control, and in your self-control,
perseverance, and in your perseverance, godliness,
1:7
and in your godliness, brotherly kindness, and in your brotherly
kindness, love.
Summary:
1. These seven virtues when
present enable the believer to fully exploit the valuable and exceedingly
great promises given to us for living in the Church age.
2. These virtues are to be
pursued with an honest effort, zeal that is diligence. (spoude)
3. The sphere of our faith (pistis)
is the basis or foundation for all of these virtues.
4. Our responsibility is to supply whatever is needed to make
these virtues a reality.
5. Beginning with faith, our frame of reference of truth each
quality or virtue is a prerequisite for the next one.
6. The sphere of your faith is manifested in these virtues or
characteristics being present in our lives:
a. virtue à knowing what is right
according to the standard of God and doing it
- only other use of arête
of man is in Phil 4:8
b. knowledge à continuing the pursuit of
divine viewpoint
c. self-control (self discipline) à needed to maintain the
goal of spiritual advancement and living in the light of eternity
d. perseverance à patient endurance as we
deal with the circumstances of life
e. godliness à refers to your manner of life which is designed
to please God
f. brotherly kindness à love of the brethren, other believers
g. love à speaks of our love for
God, being occupied with Him, recognizing that ultimately He is the source and
backer of our lives.
1:8 The Importance of these
Qualities/Virtues
What
Peter is pointing out here is that these 7 virtues being present in the life of
the believer, if they are yours, there will be spiritual effectiveness and
productivity in your life. You will be neither useless or unfruitful.
For
if these qualities are yours
This is followed by 2 circumstantial
participles which describe very vividly for us the relationship between the
advancing believer and these qualities.
1st is the pres act
participle of (hu`parcw)
meaning is to exist or be at hand
and are increasing, This is the second pres act participle
describing our relationship to these qualities (pleonazw)
-
and it means to abound, to be in abundance, to increase and with the pres tense
it would stress the continual growth and advancement of the faith so that these
qualities which are based on and flow from that faith might be always
increasing.
For if these things (the 7 qualities) keep on existing as yours and
continue increasing
The if in the translation reflects the conditional aspect of
the action of the participles in relationship to the main verb “render” in the
next phrase.
They render you neither
useless nor unfruitful
- slight problem with the translation, “they” would be okay if
the verb was plural but its
singular.
-
Since its singular it points to the fact that if these characteristics are a
reality in one’s life it leads to the results indicated next.
neither
useless nor unfruitful
-
Peter’s point here is that if you are manifesting these 7 characteristics in
your life you will be productive as a believer and it will be indicated by
your
true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
- The idea is that if someone claims to know Jesus Christ
and yet doesn’t manifest these characteristics it proves that they don’t
really.
1:8 For if
these things ( 7 virtues) keep on existing as yours and continue
increasing, it keeps rendering you neither idle nor unfruitful with respect to
the full knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Summary:
1. Once again Peter
reminds us that our advance as believers is centered in and linked to having a
full knowledge of Jesus Christ.
2. This epignosis (full
knowledge) provides the basis or foundation for these virtues to be manifest in
our life.
3. If we are to advance
beyond salvation, and to honor and serve God, that is
to present our selves for service we must recognize that spiritual growth is
required.
4. If we diligently seek
these qualities we will not be spiritually idle not fail to produce divine
good. (DGP)
5. Always our fruit or
production is the result of application of epignosis.
6. Our allotted time in
phase 2, however long, is too short for us to be spiritually idle or
unfruitful.
7. Spiritual idleness is
easily prompted by physical idleness which often leads to sin nature rule and
activity in the life. 1 Tim 5:13
8. The kosmos seeks to
side track and choke out the believers DGP.
Mk
9. Human good is to be
exposed for what it is in our life, that is the
unfruitful deeds of darkness. Eph 5:11
1:9 Spiritual blindness (myopia) and amnesia
Or
what about those believers who never get with the word, doctrine and never
exhibit these 7 virtues?
For he who lacks these qualities
Peter
now explains what are the ramifications of not manifesting
these virtues.
Lit. For in whom these things are not present
is
blind or short-sighted,
- the idea here is to see only what is near,
blinded to spiritual truth most often by the details of life and therefore
fails to orient to the importance of the Word
- Shutting the eyes to truth results in no
discernment, no spiritual moxy
having
forgotten this is actually 2 words in the Greek;
-
First aor act ptc of (lambanw) to receive something, this is followed by a hapax, a word only used once (lhqh)
which speaks of the loss of consciousness of something
his purification
from his former sins.
- Takes us to f1
when
we believed in Christ and were regenerated, and we became new creations in
Christ and all the awesome provisions were made for our position in Him
including the isolation of the ruling power of the sin nature.
- Here Peter is challenging them that those who do
not manifest these characteristics or virtues in their life are spiritually
myopic and have forgotten the awesome provision of God for them from the point
they believed in Christ.
Peter’s
emphasis here is on the purification from
his former sins.
- former (palai) old, past time that is pre-salvation
- He or she is forgetting what God did for them
when they believed in Christ, sins were forgiven, placed into union with
Christ, identified with Him and very important for his ongoing experience as a
believer the sin nature was condemned and therefore no longer has to rule one’s
life.
1:9 For
in whom these things (qualities) are not present is blind being shortsighted
having received forgetfulness of his purification from past sins. (pre salvation)