II. Growing in the Faith (2 Peter 1:3-15)

II. Growing in the Faith (1:3-15)

1:3 Spiritual growth can be a reality for every believer because God already has given us everything required for life and godliness. The spiritual blessings we need are already available to us (see Eph 1:3), but it’s up to us to access them. These comprehensive blessings are appropriated through the knowledge of God—that is, through the specific knowledge of God’s will for and blessings to believers. This knowledge is the difference between merely meeting the President of the United States and having a personal relationship with him.

1:4 A key to spiritual growth is sharing in the divine nature, which penetrates and lives within every believer beginning at the moment of salvation through the Holy Spirit. Christians, in a manner of speaking, have God’s nature woven into their DNA. This nature includes spiritual appetite and godly behavior.

Yet the divine nature is implanted in seed form (cf. 1 Pet 1:23) and doesn’t immediately translate into mature, godly living. Rather, it gives every Christian the potential to escape the corruption that is in the world because of evil desire, much like a seed gives the person who possesses it the potential to grow a plant. When the seed is tended and grows, the life of the Spirit expands in a believer’s soul, and the expansion is manifested in the body through righteous living.

1:5-7 For the divine nature to express itself manifestly in a believer’s life, the believer must make every effort to supplement his or her faith with seven qualities (1:5)—the number seven signifying completeness. The new nature has already been programmed to respond to the right input, just like a baby has been programmed to respond to its mother’s milk. The nutrients in the milk enable the baby’s growth and development.

The seven supplemental qualities necessary for spiritual growth are goodness (living to glorify God), knowledge (responding to divine revelation), self-control (resisting sinful desires), endurance (not quitting until God releases you), godliness (seeking to please God with your choices), brotherly affection (caring for the well-being of other members of God’s family), love (compassionately and righteously seeking the well-being of others, including nonbelievers). These qualities act like vitamin supplements, enabling believers to adopt God’s kingdom perspective and live in accordance with it. As a packet of seeds instructs the gardener to add soil and water to his crop to see it yield fruit, God instructs believers to add these qualities to their saving faith in order to actualize the potential for maturity and godly living.

1:8 If believers possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will not be useless or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. A growing Christian produces spiritual fruit that God uses to bless others and bring joy. When you’re growing in Christ, you don’t have to strain to bear fruit. It will emerge as naturally as apples develop on a healthy apple tree.

1:9-11 On the other hand, the person who lacks the qualities listed in 1:5-7 is blind and shortsighted and has forgotten the price Jesus paid on the cross to make spiritual growth and spiritual productivity possible (1:9). In this context, the admonition to make every effort to confirm your calling and election (1:10) is not about making sure we’re saved. It’s about making sure we are spiritually productive. God chose believers for the purpose of spiritual productivity (cf. 1 Pet 1:2, 15; 2:21). Therefore, we must ensure that the purpose for which God called us is being achieved. If we do, we will never stumble in this life (1:10) and entry into the eternal kingdom will be richly provided (1:11)—that is, with maximum rewards. It is possible to be saved yet enter heaven without rewards, but that is a destiny believers should strive to avoid.

1:12-14 Peter’s purpose in writing this letter was to remind believers about these things, even though they knew them and were established in the truth (1:12). His urgency to issue the reminder stemmed not from any failure on the part of Christians but from the impending reality of his own death, about which Jesus made a clear prophecy (1:14; see John 21:18-19).

1:15 Just as believers are to “make every effort” to grow in their faith (1:5), Peter vowed to make every effort to teach God’s people about spiritual growth so that they would be able to recall these things at any time after [his] departure.