Skills
for Developing Virtue
Romans 5:2-5; 2
Peter 1:3-8
2 Peter 1, specifically verses 5-8, present a similar list
of virtues to those that are spelled out in Romans 5. In Romans 5:2 “Through whom [Christ] also we have access by
faith into this grace in which we stand…”
This phrase “in which we stand” focuses on the present reality of a
justified believer. Chapter 5 is
really a transition from talking about justification, which is laid out at the
end of chapter 3 and 4, to the spiritual life for how a justified believer
grows and matures in grace and by means of grace. This is foreshadowed in this stairstep.
Romans
5:3-4
adversity ----> endurance ----> tested, approved character ----> confidence (hope)
(thlipsis)
(hupomone)
(dokime)
(elpis)
The other kinds of virtue ladders that we find in other
passages of Scripture are all firmly located in sanctification-focused
passages. Paul is sort of
introducing here some of the key ideas that will come back to dominate what he
says about the spiritual life in Romans 6, 7 and 8.
Romans 5:2 “…and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.” This hope is a forward-looking
confidence, a certainty and not a wishy-washy expectation or wishful optimisim, a certain confidence in the future. It is becoming more significant as I
read this now and other passages that the phrase “glory of God” was often used
as a sort of summation of all of God’s character. We see that in passages like Romans 3:23 “for all have
sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” We would expect maybe righteousness of God or the justice of
God, but we have the glory of God because that is a term that summarizes all of
God’s character, all of His attributes.
We fall short of that.
Last time and the time before, I talked about defining
virtue, not on the basis of the human viewpoint tradition of Greco-Roman
thought but on the biblical usage of the terminology as it was rarely used in
the Old Testament only on 3 or 4 occasions. For example, only in Isaiah and a couple of other places was
the term virtue used in the Greek translation. The rabbis who translated from the Hebrew text did not see
virtue in a Greco-Roman sense as being equivalent to the moral concept in the
Scripture. Where you do find arete [a)reth]used is when it is proclaiming the
excellences of God’s character.
The term virtue in the Old Testament was understood to be related to the
sum total of God’s character and not an abstract or autonomous concept of moral
excellence, which is what you have coming out of both Greek and Roman
philosophy and culture.
For the Jews, it was something that was grounded objectively
in the character of God, so when we get into the New Testament, we have to
continue to follow this principle that the primary frame of reference for New
Testament vocabulary is not 5th century Greece or 4th
century Rome; it is the Old Testament.
That is what formed the frame of reference for the apostles and the
early Christians who were mostly Jewish and not a Greco-Roman pagan culture.
We can paraphrase it that Paul says that we rejoice in this
confidence in relation to the character of God. Romans 5:3-4 “And not only that, but we also glory [rejoice]
in tribulations [adversities], knowing that tribulation produces perseverance
[endurance]; and perseverance, character; and character, hope
[confidence].” That is our stairstep. It
is a figure of speech or a way of developing a logical flow called sorites,
which is one thing leads to another, leads to another, leads to another.
I pointed it out this way by thinking through basic steps or
stages in spiritual growth. There
are three major passages (some minor passages) that we have looked at that
approach the Christian life in terms of expressing certain virtue or character
qualities that are part of a progression of spiritual growth.
Romans
5:3-4
adversity ----> endurance ----> tested, approved character ---->
confidence (hope)
(thlipsis)
(hupomone)
(dokime)
(elpis)
We learn to deal with adversity, we endure, we are tested or
evaluated, and then character is developed. That is a key concept that God is producing a specific
character in us. The process of
this development leads to hope.
James
1:2-4
trial ---------> testing ------> endurance ----> perfect work maturation
(peirasmos) (dokimion)
(hupomone)
(teleios)
James 1:3-4 “Because you know that the testing of your faith
produces patience [endurance]. But
let patience have its perfect [maturing] work, that you may be perfect and
complete, lacking nothing.” We see
that James looks at it a little differently than Romans, some similar verbiage
and qualities, but they do not have to be identical. Too often we try to make each of these elements relate to
another, as if God is laying out some rigid blueprint. It is not rigid; it is dynamic. There are a lot of different elements
that are part of it, and each writer is going to emphasize different aspects of
the maturation process depending on what he is focusing on in terms of his
specific, distinct audience.
James is talking about a trial, so there is similarity there
between the adversity where Paul starts in Romans 5:3 and the trials of James
1:2. Then there is testing, and
there is the noun dokimion [dokimion] which is similar to the
adjective dokime [dokimh] for
“tested, approved character” in Romans 5:4. But both also emphasize endurance, which is a
commonality. It is that
development of endurance, stick-to-itiveness in a spiritual sense, hanging with
it, and not fading out because of distractions in life or thinking you have
arrived.
I am amazed how many Christians think they have arrived when
they have maybe gotten to first base and are acting as if they have hit home
plate. They just do not have this
stick-to-itiveness to hang in there over a period of 4, 5, or 6 decades.
James emphasizes the trial leads to testing, then developing
character leading to endurance, which leads to maturity. These are called virtue lists. The opposite of a virtue is a
vice. There is this contrast we
often find in these lists, specifically Galatians 5:19-23, where you have the
works of the flesh contrasted with the fruit of the Spirit.
We looked at 2 Peter 1:3-4 where it lays the groundwork in
Peter’s thinking that it is God’s power, the totality of His character as seen
in His omnipotence that provides for us everything related to life and
godliness. I emphasized that the
term godliness, eusebeia/e)usebeia, is
a word that emphasizes a loyalty toward God. It is not just living a life that imitates God or reflects
His character, but it is grounded on a faithful devotion and loyalty to
God. It comes through knowledge (epignosis/ e)pignwsij).
I want to talk about the word interchange between these two
forms of the word knowledge.
Sometimes we have the word gnosis,
which is the basic root noun for knowledge, and other times, it is intensified
with a prefix epignosis. epignosis
emphasizes a fuller, more experiential or usable knowledge;
whereas, gnosis
emphasizes knowledge itself. The
way we all use language is we sometimes use a word that reflects a part for the
whole, and sometimes we use a word for the whole for the part that includes
more than just the sum of the parts.
There are those who say you have drawn too tight a distinction between epignosis and
gnosis. Maybe in some cases that is true, but
when the writer uses these terms, he is choosing one over against another.
We believe in verbal, plenary inspiration and that every
word is ultimately chosen and selected by God the Holy Spirit not just for
stylistic reasons but because He is emphasizing something even between
synonyms. If you have, for
example, agape [a)gaph] (word for love)
and philos [filoj] (another word
for love) in the same passage, and they are translated in English as love,
there is a reason that the writers of Scripture chose to use one over the
other. There is something they are
emphasizing, and they are not just choosing them for some stylistic variation.
In this introduction in 2 Peter 1:3, we are told that all of
this is given to us “through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and
virtue.” That relates to His
character, so virtue again is used in relation to the character of God, His
glory.
2 Peter 1:4 “By which [on the basis of or by means of His
character] have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises…” Promises focuses on content, and by
virtue of having these promises (specific content-oriented statements in
Scripture that we can take to the bank as a firm commitment from God) that we
may by following and implementing those promises partake of the divine
nature. Again we get this idea
that it is God’s character that we are able to display that is developed in our
lives as a result of the implementation and application of those promises. We can be participants and develop the
character of God within us. It is
by doing this that we escape “the corruption that is in the world through
lust.”
I emphasized this word corruption because it indicates
something that is in decay, something that is dead and rotting. That is the world system – dead,
rotting and nothing attractive about it.
Satan tries to put makeup on something that is dead and rotten to make
it attractive and appealing to us, but the end result is going to be destroyed,
and there is nothing there that is really of value.
The way in which we escape that is by developing this
character that God is developing in us, so we need to understand what are the
mechanics, what is the way in which God does this, and what are the elements of
that character. All of this is to
lead up to understand this virtue ladder that is developed in 2 Peter 1:5-7,
where Peter writes “But also for this reason [because God has given this to us
so that we can escape the corruption that is in the world], giving all
diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge
self-control, to self control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to
godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love.” You see there is a progression –
you add one to the other. There is
a development from one stage to another; one quality builds upon a previous quality.
The list for 2 Peter starts with faith, to that one add
virtue, and to that knowledge, which is gnosis
and not epignosis. We might ask the question why is the
emphasis on gnosis? That is because you have to learn the
facts and the information in Scripture before it can be usable information. gnosis
is not contrasted to epignosis;
it is just the first stage in development of going from knowledge to a full,
usable application knowledge. We
have to learn it first before it becomes usable and applicable.
Then we develop self-mastery, then endurance, then godliness
which is that loyal, faithful obedience to God, then brotherly kindness or
brotherly love for one another, and then ultimately love (agape) which is the ultimate in this
list.
Romans
5:3-4 James
1:2-4 2
Peter 1:5-8
Confidence (hope) Perfect
work, Love
(agape)
(elpis) maturation
(teleios)
Love
for one another
Tested, approved character (philadelphia)
(dokime)
Spiritual
responsibility
(eusebeia)
Endurance (hupomone)
Endurance (hupomone) Endurance
(hupomone)
Self-control
(egkrateia)
Testing (dokimion) Knowledge
(gnosis)
Virtue
(aręte)
Adversity (thlipsis)
Trial (peirasmos) Faith
(pistis)
There are some differences in the lists, but in the middle
is this word endurance (hupomone/u(pomonh) that we need to hang in there and
develop that consistency, that stick-to-itiveness in the Christian life.
The first character quality is faith. There is a distinction between faith as
a noun describing an act of believing and the word faith referring to what is
believed. For example, in Hebrews
11 it talks about “by faith” and then there are various Old Testament heroes
that are cited for the way in which they trusted in God. It not only has the idea of the act of
trusting God, but also on the basis or by means of what they believed to be
true, they acted consistent with what they believed to be true. They did something with the faith. It was not just something internal,
subjective, and was theirs and they kept quiet; it led to action. This is a distinctively Old Testament
idea that the virtues that are developed in the spiritual life are not just
some sort of static, passive mental thing, but they are all to culminate in
action that is the result of character transformation.
Peter begins with the statement in 1 Peter 1:5, “giving all diligence.” He uses a Greek word that means to
exert all diligence. It is a
participial use of the term which indicates means. When
this means is emphasized, this is the way in which one element is added to
another. You have a growth progression that takes place by being diligent. That
is something that engages our volition. The Christian life is not this sort of
mystical, passive thing that God just zaps you with.
I pointed this out the other day when we were talking about
the filling by means of the Spirit. The Spirit influences us, but He does not
make the decision for us to apply doctrine. We do not just say I have confessed
my sin, I’m in fellowship, now the Holy Spirit is
going to make this hard decision easy for me. He does not work that way; He does not override our
volition. He brings to our mind the information that we need, and then it is up
to us to implement it and choose to apply that knowledge in the specific
situation or circumstance.
We are to be diligent: this is the same word that the KJV
translates “Study to show yourself approved unto God…” (2 Timothy 2:15) That word “study” is spoudazo [spaudazw], and it means to be diligent in
the study of God’s Word. It has
the idea of putting effort into and consciously being diligent about
something. It means focusing on
your spiritual life and developing spiritually positive growth-producing habits
that will lead to spiritual growth.
2 Peter 1:5 “…giving [exerting] all diligence, add to your
faith virtue …” This word faith [pistis/pistij]
also can have the idea of faithfulness or reliability when it is in a virtue
list like this. It is not just the
act of believing; it is faithfulness in applying that which one believes. This
is at the very core of spiritual growth - having a firm conviction or belief in
a body of doctrine and learning to consistently, faithfully implement that. Faith
is the starting point of our spiritual growth. It is an immature concept at
this time because you are talking about a spiritual infant. That spiritual baby loves, just as
babies love their parents, but it is not a mature kind of love which is what
the progression moves toward.
You add to this “virtue.” Virtue is showing the character of
God. There is a character transformation that is going on. Virtue, in its
biblical usage, is focusing on reflecting as an image bearer of God His character
in us.
The Image of
God (imago Dei)
Virtue = the
reflection of God’s character
Mankind created The
“image” is defaced The
“image is being
in God’s image. and
corrupted by the fall. conformed
to the image of
Christ
through justification
> > > > >
> > > > > and
sanctification.
Genesis 1:26-28 Genesis
3 Romans
8:28-29
We are created in God’s image, and that image was corrupted
by the fall, but we are told that we are being conformed to the image of
Christ, His character. Even though
that image has been corrupted and defaced by sin, it can be renewed and it is
being renewed in the process of sanctification. Through justification and sanctification, that image is
being renewed according to the character of Christ. What God is trying to do with us in terms of our spiritual
growth is to make us reflect Christ’s character in us. We are not to look at various Christian
personalities or people that we admire to imitate their character, as much as
it might be admirable as a Christian, but we are to look to Christ. That is the pattern that God is using;
He is conforming us to the image of Christ. A question then comes “How exactly does this take
place?” This is the process of
spiritual growth. As we move
forward, God begins to develop this character in us, and this starts at an
early stage.
One of the fun things about looking at a passage like this is
to try to fit it together with other things we have learned and studied, so
that we come to a more usable understanding of what the Scriptures are
teaching. When we go through what
Paul says and look at what Peter says and what other passages teach on the
development of the Christian life, we see that each writer looks at things a
little differently.
When we try to put them all together, that is really what I
think is fun. That is what we call
systematic theology. We develop
what Paul thought about something – that is Pauline theology or, in
technical terminology, a biblical theology of Paul. We look at what Peter says – that is the biblical
theology of Peter. We look at what
John says in the epistles of John, and that is the biblical theology of John. Then we try to synthesize it all and
put it all together to get a full picture. That is how God wants us to do this: to think a lot about
what he says in Scripture. He does
not give us all the answers; He gives us all the data so we are forced to go
into the text and massage the text over and over and pull these things
together.
In the past, I talked about foundational spiritual
skills. Whether we talk about the
stress busters or problem solving devices or whatever the terminology is, these
are the basic skills that are taught again and again in Scripture that we need
to use in order to grow and mature as believers.
Basic Spiritual
Growth:
Spiritual
Skills for Developing Virtue
Recovery:
Confession, 1 John 1:9
Spiritual
Power: Filling of the Holy
Spirit, Walking by the Holy Spirit, Ephesians 5:18
Spiritual Knowledge Base:
Faith Rest Drill, 2 Peter 1:3, 4
Grace Orientation, 2 Peter 3:18
Doctrinal Orientation, 2 Peter 3:18
The first is confession. Confession is that which gets us recovery from failure. It is not a license to sin, which some
legalists want to accuse us of saying because we are not treating sin as
something that is inconsequential but that God is not holding that against
us. We are saved, our sins are forgiven
judicially at the cross and positionally at
salvation. On the basis of that,
whenever we fail, there is the free grace offer of forgiveness and cleansing by
simply admitting to God the sin that we have committed. He wants to forgive us, but it is not
done without us recognizing that we have sinned and that we have disobeyed
Him. There is a recovery procedure
that gets us started in the right track again.
Then the next spiritual skill is walking by the Holy Spirit
and being filled by the Holy Spirit.
I like walking by the Spirit because it emphasizes that moment by moment
dependence and is a little broader term.
If you are walking by the Holy Spirit, the Spirit is the one performing
the action in filling us with His Word, comparing Ephesians 5:18 with
Colossians 3:16. The Holy Spirit
is filling us with His Word, stores it in our soul, and brings it to memory
when we encounter various situations in life.
We are passive to that. When the Scripture uses the passive command “Be filled by
means of the Spirit,” it is emphasizing the actions performed by the Holy
Spirit. We are just sort of
receiving it and are in a position where that can happen as a result of
confessing sin.
But we are to walk by means of the Spirit, that is, actively
engaged in dependency upon God the Holy Spirit step by step. It is a lifestyle term. This comes back to a term related to
character. Ephesians 5:18 is to be
filled by means of the Spirit.
Colossians 3:16 is walking by means of the Spirit. This is the foundation. Confession gets us just to a recovery
position. You can confess your
sins all day long, but it will not move you one inch further in your spiritual
growth if you do not walk. It
simply gets you turned in the right direction to begin walking by the
Spirit. Some people are so dizzy
that they almost pass out spiritually because they sin and confess, sin and
confess, sin and confess; and they never get off that dime. We all go through that; that is part of
spiritual babyhood and learning.
Eventually, we hope we manage to spend a second or two in fellowship and
walking before we fall down and have to confess again. Maybe after 20 or 30 years, we think we
might even get to the point where we do not stumble quite as badly as we have
in the past.
These two realities focus on the spiritual life not being
something we produce by just going out and deciding that we are going to be
moral, we are going to do the right thing, we are going to make the right
choices in the right situations, and somehow we are going to pull ourselves up
by our ethical bootstraps and please God.
The Scripture clearly teaches the Christian life is produced by the Holy
Spirit. So what is the basis for
that? Those are the next spiritual
skills: faith rest drill, grace
orientation and doctrinal orientation.
They are laid out in the chart in a logical order. Grace orientation comes first because
we have to understand at salvation and in the Christian life that everything is
by grace. That is part of
doctrine.
Somebody who is too detail oriented for their own good might
say that grace orientation is part of doctrinal orientation, so how do you make
a distinction? You are just
emphasizing grace is something that you really have to orient to before you can
orient to the rest of doctrine.
Grace is foundational. But
that is just looking at these three in sort of a logical connection.
The reality is that in the growth process, there is
interplay: the three work together
in tandem. There is a give and
take, and growth is taking place as the three interconnect. In the faith rest drill, what are we
doing? We are learning a promise
that is part of doctrine; it is not separate from doctrine. We are working on a skill here: learning a doctrine and grabbing hold
of it with faith and trusting in it, relying upon God. The promise is true because God is
true. It is not the focus on the
promise itself but on the God behind it who is always true and faithful.
2 Peter 1:4 “By which [God’s character] have been given to
us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be
partakers of the divine nature…”
We need to start learning salvation promises, promises related to
forgiveness, and promises dealing with different problems and issues in life. People have problems with depression,
anger, laziness, discouragement, lust – how do you start dealing with
these? By learning promises in the
Scripture and claiming them. It is
practiced over and over again like sitting down at the piano and playing scales
or running through the fingering or slide procedures on an instrument over and
over again until they become so imbedded in muscle memory that it becomes
virtually automatic.
That is how you develop skill. You do not develop skill by applying it once every three or
four days. You are not going to
get good at anything. This is
something that you learn to practice over and over again, and eventually that
becomes part of you and imbedded as a skill.
The 2nd of these spiritual skills is grace
orientation: learning again and
again and again that everything in our life is due to God’s grace, and we do
not deserve anything that we have.
Most of the time if we got what we deserve, we would not even be down
under a bridge. I do not know
where we would be, but it would not be good. How many times do we make decisions or procrastinate
decisions or make bad decisions, and God does not lower the boom on us. Instead, God takes care of us and
provides for us and graces us out.
We have to learn that principle that we are who we are and have what we
have solely by the grace of God and not because we are somebody, but because
God has chosen to give these things to us freely.
Peter will conclude at the end of the epistle a command (2
Peter 3:18) to “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus
Christ.” That is the 3rd
of the spiritual skills: doctrinal
orientation, where doctrine is a term that refers to the entire realm of what
the Bible teaches. It is not a
term that it has come to be used in contemporary language as if it relates to
abstract theology. You may not be
aware of this, but in theological circles, seminaries and Bible colleges, they
make this dichotomy between doctrine and application.
But that is not how the Bible uses the word doctrine. Doctrine is not just abstract
principles. It incorporates
everything from theory to application.
The military uses the term doctrine in this way, starting from planning,
procedures, developing various ways in which they approach certain problems and
issues and then all the way to the final product and its application
implementation in warfare. The
whole thing is covered under the concept of doctrine. This concept we have then is not just learning a lot of
principles in some sort of abstract sense, sticking it away in notebooks so we
can go home and say see how much I’ve learned about the Bible and
theology. It should culminate in
action, in changed life and living, in changed procedures that produce success
in the Christian battlefield scenario.
So we have doctrinal orientation which is aligning ourselves and our
thinking to everything that the Bible teaches us about thinking and living.
These three work together in a dynamism as we learn
promises, about God’s grace, content about doctrine, procedures, thinking. The result of the spiritual skills is
character change. These are just
the things that we act on. These
skills of walking by the Spirit, faith rest drill, grace orientation, doctrinal
orientation are just things we do to maintain the walk to stay in fellowship,
but it is God the Holy Spirit that produces the fruit, the character
transformation. We do not do that.
I cannot say that I am going to go out and produce love or
joy or self-discipline today. Not
in this sense; this is something that is a product of the Holy Spirit that is
distinctively and uniquely produced by the Spirit in my life. The only command
in Galatians 5:16-26 is to walk by the Spirit. When you walk by the Spirit, then the Spirit produces
this. We cannot change our character
into the character of Christ. This
is summarized in this list in Galatians 5:22-23 “…love, joy, peace,
longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law.”
We are to obey the Scripture. Remember the context here in 2 Peter 1:4 talks about as we
grow in knowledge, it lays a foundation for escaping the corruption of the
world. But if we remain ignorant
(no doctrinal orientation or knowledge), then we remain anchored to that
corruption. 1 Peter 1:14 “As
obedient children, not conforming yourselves to the former lusts, as in your
ignorance.” With knowledge you
should not conform to the thinking and the operation of the world.
2 Peter 1:5, we add to faith virtue as we grow, as we
develop faithfulness in the Word, and then we begin to see some character
application and transformation by God the Holy Spirit. Then to virtue we add knowledge, which
is the word gnosis. In 2 Peter 1:2, Peter says “Grace and
peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God…” – that is gnosis. Before you can have a full knowledge, a
usable, applicable knowledge that leads to real wisdom in life, you have to
know the facts. You have to know
the facts that have been revealed in Scripture; there has to be a knowledge of
information and what the Scriptures teach. Gnosis is in verse 2 and verse 5. epignosis is in verse 3 “as His divine power has
given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of
Him…” That
is taking the information level to the next level as a result of application
and believing and trusting in the Lord.
2 Peter 1:6 “to knowledge self-control …” The Greek word for self-control
is enkrateia [e)gkrateia]. It is an interesting word – it is
a fruit of the Spirit. It is not
something that you and I can just generate on our own.
I remember when I was a kid, I
really wanted my dad’s Marine Corps KA-BAR
knife. He said when I got a plus
on my report card on self-discipline, I would get it. In elementary school, you had to earn everything you
got. You started from a deficit,
and if you wanted a check or plus, you had to prove it to the teacher. In junior high, they started everybody
off with E for excellent, and we had to do something to lose it. It was not until I was in the 7th
grade that they changed the grading system that I qualified under
self-discipline.
Self-discipline is something anybody can generate in the
flesh. There are a lot of very
disciplined, organized, self-mastered individuals in the world, and it has
nothing whatsoever to do with a spiritual fruit or spiritual character
quality. This is a spiritual
character quality that it does not matter what your personality is. Many of you have been in different jobs
or careers where perhaps you had to take a certain personality test in order to
maybe advance to another level. I
know that these kinds of things were coming into vogue in the 1960s and 1970s,
like the Taylor-Johnson Temperament Analysis or the MMPI tests (Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory). Fortunately, none of those were
required for admission to Dallas Seminary until the 1980s when they started
requiring that. There were really
good men who did not qualify because they did not pass some psychological
exam. That just shows the trends
of their sin nature may be coming out in that.
What we are talking about in terms of spiritual maturity is
that the Holy Spirit produces the character of Christ in us. In our flesh, operating in the sin
nature, you may be a disorganized, lazy, undisciplined individual, but God the
Holy Spirit is the one who transforms that. That does not transform through going through some sort of
personal counseling or learning 5 steps to be a more organized, time-managed
individual. It is the product of
spiritual growth and is the Holy Spirit who changes us.
In contrast, what we have is a description in 2 Timothy 3
that in the last days people will be undisciplined and lack self-control. (Verse 1-3) “But know this, that in the
last days perilous times will come: For men will be lovers of themselves,
lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents,
unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control,
brutal, despisers of good.” We certainly see that today – a tremendous
lack of any kind of self-discipline or self-mastery among numerous segments of
the population. (Verse 4)
“traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God …” This a picture of modern society. But believers, no matter what their
background or their character qualities as a result of their sin nature, can
have that transformed through perseverance.
We read in 2 Peter 1:6 “to knowledge self-control
[self-mastery], to self-control perseverance [learning to stay with it and stick
to it], to perseverance godliness.”
Perseverance is the idea of staying in difficult circumstances and
continuing to do the right thing because it is the right thing no matter what
the pressure is to go to an easier course of action.
The next step is godliness, eusebeia, which in the
old English gets the idea for godliness from the word God-likeness. It is a good word to a certain degree
because it shows that what is being emphasized here is the character of God is
being imparted and developed within the believer. It goes beyond that by studying both the use of the Greek
word eusebeia, as
well as the Latin word pietas, which has the idea of not only developing this character of
God but of showing reverence and loyalty to God.
The greatest commandment in the Old Testament, if you ask
anybody who is Jewish, is what is called the Shemah. Shemah is a Hebrew word which
means, literally translated, to listen or to hear. The Shemah
is Deuteronomy 6:4 “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one!” Often that verse is taken to emphasize
monotheism and a singularity of God within Judaism. But even some Jewish scholars are beginning to recognize
that that is not the thrust of this word one. It is not talking about a singularity of God.
The word shemah is the opening word and is
a command to hear or to listen, but it really has the implication of obey. If you as a parent come home and your
child has disobeyed you, in scolding them you might say, “You didn’t listen to
me.” You are not saying that they
did not have their auditory nerves vibrated with the sound of your voice, but
what you mean is “You didn’t obey me; you didn’t respond properly to my
commands.” Hebrew does not have
the wide range of vocabulary that English or Greek do, so one word had to
function in a lot of different ways.
One of the ways in which shemah functions is in the
concept of meaning obey.
To freely translate Deuteronomy 6:4 would be “obey this,
Israel.” It is a command. The Lord our God in the Hebrew is Yahweh Elohenu (our God, our Elohim). The focus is on Yahweh; who is this Yahweh? Yahweh echad actually has the idea of the
Lord alone, not the Lord is one. Last time I pointed out that the idea
of one does not always mean a singularity. It is also used in relation to Adam
and Eve coming together, and the Lord said the two would become one flesh. It is a recognition
that there is a multiplicity within a unity. But the word echad also has the meaning of
alone. Even the Jewish Publication
Society 1985 translation of the Old Testament (the Tanach)
translates Deuteronomy 6:4 “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord
alone!” Modern linguistic
scholarship has made it clear that that is the emphasis here, and throughout
the Old Testament, there are corollary passages that emphasize that Israel is
to worship God alone, not any other gods.
That is what loyalty to God means.
When Jesus is asked what are the greatest commandments, He
begins by saying “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one!” Why does He start with that? Because it is a command to Israel to be
exclusively loyal to God, and then the greatest commandment flowing from that
is the commandment that they are to love the Lord their God with all their
heart (mind), soul (life), and strength – every aspect of their being. It
is a call to complete and total dedication and loyalty to God and God alone. That
is first and foremost, and then out of that flows the second commandment that
they were to love their neighbor as themselves.
When we go back to 2 Peter 1 and the idea of godliness, it
is this idea that brings in not only a reflection of God’s character but that
loyalty. One of the greatest words
describing the love of God in the Old Testament is the Hebrew word chesed,
which refers to His faithful, loyal love.
In fact, ahav, the other word for love, is not
used that much of God. Chesed
is used again and again, emphasizing that love is loyalty. If we were going to define love, that
would have to be in the definition.
For example in the Old Testament, when a king would conquer
another nation and the conquered king would have to swear loyalty and
allegiance to the king who had conquered him, they would enter into a contract,
and that covenant would demand that the conquered king love the conqueror. It did not mean that they had to feel
good about him and all those things that we associate with romantic love. It meant that that conquered king had
to be completely loyal to the conquering king despite how he might feel. He had to be loyal to him.