(5) For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, (6) and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, (7) and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. ~ 2 Peter 1:5-7
This post is the second on 2 Peter 1:5-7. It follows on from the last post on ‘faith with virtue’, which looked at a bit of context surrounding this passage before discussing the meaning of virtue. One bit of context that we need to take with us is that good works don’t themselves save – we can’t be good enough to be accepted by God. No, we’re only accepted by receiving the gift of the way Jesus lived and died in our place, making us acceptable and forgiven by God by Jesus’ own moral performance on our behalf, not ours.
The caveat to make is that being Christian still includes ‘doing good’ because this is the identity we’re called to and desire to live in as God's people, for freedom and joy, among other things, and more broadly, for continuing relationship with the God who loves us more than anything else.
So, here are some thoughts on knowledge this post has prompted me to consider, even though this post isn’t an exhaustive treatment of this topic. In the last post I made some preliminary remarks that the knowledge Peter is referring to is spiritual knowledge and that he’s referring to knowledge about God and his will for how we should live for him. Here are some more ideas that I found illuminating.
There’s a reason why knowledge is at the start and love is at the end of the list in this verse. There’s no doubt knowledge of God is essential, but Peter wants that knowledge to translate into lived-out Christian maturity in love. Other passages echo this. For instance, 1 Corinthians 13, verse 2 says that:
“...if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.”
This idea that knowledge is temporary, and needs to be paired with love to be useful in the long term, should also be balanced with the idea that gospel-knowledge saves. Faith and knowledge are at the beginning of the list possibly because people need knowledge and faith in the gospel to be saved (Rom. 1:16), and they then need not to forget that being ‘good’ in virtuous ways is important before they learn specific knowledge from God to live for him, which is summed up in love. And this love is not the world’s version of love (not wishy-washy, nonsensically relativising, or Hollywood-movie defined love) but God’s version of love, which the Bible claims is the real love he created and embodies. For instance, Jesus said the greatest commands are:
“‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” (Matthew 22:37-40)
Here love is seen as an end goal, but we need knowledge of how to live for God to get there. We need the word of God to tell us what God’s love is by specific measures and in various ways. So, knowledge and love aren’t exclusive; they’re connected. We don’t move from knowledge of God to love; we supplement them and complement them. All these things build together; they don’t replace one another. This is because...
We need the knowledge God gives by his word (the Bible) to continually know him, live for him and love him rightly. Just because we’re saved, we’re not made with the ability (yet) to hold the perfect image of God in our minds. We know God in part, but when God welcomes us into his new creation (heaven), we’ll know him perfectly. The image or picture of the knowledge we have of God informs how well we love him, but that picture we have of God is continually being informed, re-envisioned, and reminded of who God is. We need to keep reading the Bible so that our minds can keep being renewed in the knowledge of God through Christ (Rom. 12:2). For instance, if we wrongly think God is demanding, perfectionistic, exacting, harsh and cruel, with unrelenting standards, we will struggle to rejoice in God and love him as he desires. We need to remember God is gentle (2 Peter 3:9), wanting us to view him rightly to live for him in joy, without burning out, and without legalistically trying to save ourselves in a way that undermines his sacrifice at the cross (Jesus didn’t die so you can tell him his payment for your sins wasn't enough). So, we don’t move on from knowledge to love. We need right knowledge of God and his will through the Bible, and continually, to love God as he desires.
We also need spiritual knowledge continually applied by the Holy Spirit. There’s lots to be said about the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit guides us into the truth about God and illuminates his word to our minds (John 16:13, Ephesians 1:17), and the Spirit gives us convicting knowledge of our sin (Ephesians 4:30). I’m not going to debate so-called New Testament prophecy, because in some ways it feels irrelevant if all prophecy needs to accord with God’s word, and be close to his word, to be anything less than sinful…and so then why not just read God’s more powerful word to one another? I think it’s worth saying that the Spirit is so connected with God’s word that we need to be cautious about thinking it’s closer to hyped-up emotionalism over what some would call ‘dry knowledge’. First, why aren’t we excited about God’s word if this is the knowledge we’re talking about? This makes the problem about us, not the word. Secondly, we can’t trust our feelings in our knowledge of God’s love. Sometimes our fallen emotions will lead us away from God in ways God’s word is trying to rebuke. While emotions are important, they can lead us astray. God does call our hearts and affections to be moved by his truth, but why can’t and shouldn't they be moved by the truth instead of the things we would prefer to hear? I argue they must and will be more effectively so.
This post was no doubt a bit dense. I hope it was in some way encouraging. I’ve also been thankful for the chance to reflect on these things.
So, let’s supplement virtue with knowledge, or in other words, add knowledge of God’s word and his will to our ideas of the kinds of goodness we should live in to honour God. Of course, this is not to be smugly superior as if we deserve to worship ourselves with standards of goodness (God has saved us from self-worship), but we must live-out the radical love of the maturity he embodies. Loving even our enemies, honouring others above ourselves, and laying down our lives in love for others are all examples of living in love as Christ himself loved us and which he calls us to embody. This is a greater height of the maturing work the Spirit does, which should not be confused with cosmic emotionalism that people sometimes imply is opposed to a knowledge that is really more important, since Paul famously said:
"I will show you a still more excellent way
…[if I] have not love, I am nothing" (1 Cor. 12:31-13:2)
This post was written in advance and automatically published.