Sermon for Flinders Park Church February 2019

One question that often troubles people is ‘What is the purpose of my life?’  I Googled the purpose of life and found a few different answers.  Here are some examples: satisfying work, responsibility towards other people, doing something that no one else can achieve, gaining control over things and other people, getting wealth, experiencing as much as possible, and lastly loving everything and everyone.  Many of these miss the mark by a long shot.  The last one is probably the best of the options.  So what is the purpose of life?  I don’t think that the Bible gives us specifics about what particular things I should do with my life in particular this year.  However, it does tell us what the goal of human existence is.

“3 His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, ⁴ by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire” (2 Pet. 1:3-4 ESV).

The goal of human existence is that human beings may become partakers of the divine nature.  Now this is probably a new concept so I think it is necessary to explore these two verses carefully.  After that we can move on to verses 5-11 and see the consequences of this goal in the present Christian life.

“His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness.”

Life and godliness covers both the secular and the sacred.  ‘Life’ might just mean being alive since God gives us the very breath that we breathe or it could mean eternal life; godliness involves living in a way that pleases God.  There is no distinction between secular and sacred in the Christian life; all aspects of life are lived in the sight of God.  All necessary things have been granted to us so that we can live in a way that honours God, both now and forever.

Jesus has bestowed on us all things pertaining to life and godliness.  Life and godliness are gifts before anything that we attain or do.  So it is completely wrong to say that Jesus has done his part and now we have to take up the slack.  No.  He has given us all things that are necessary for godliness.  Nothing is lacking, nothing is missing.  There is nothing that will come our way that Jesus has not equipped us to handle in a godly way.

This is possible through Christ’s divine power, the power he shares with God the Father and the Spirit.  His divine power enabled him to be incarnate, live a holy life, die for sinners and rise from the dead.  Because of who he is and what he has done, Jesus is able to grant us all things for life and godliness.

Peter does not outline what “all things” means.  Some Anglicans of my acquaintance maintain that this means God has given us the Bible and we need nothing else for a godly life.  I am convinced that the Bible alone is not enough.  God has given us much more than that.  We have the salvation Jesus brings, the Holy Spirit dwelling is us, the fellowship of other believers, the armour of God for spiritual warfare, along with God’s word given to us.  Perhaps you can think of more that we have been given in order to live godly lives.  We can be certain that all things means that nothing is left out.

This is something to rejoice about.  It is something which comes out of God’s greatness and goodness.  It does not come from us.  It is so easy to get all worked up and worried about how we are going to please God with our lives.  It can become a burden because it seems impossible to figure out life and so hard to be godly.  We all want to please God but we don’t have the power within us to do this.  But here is a reassurance that God has given us what we need because he has a bountiful store of all things necessary for life and godliness.  Just as Peter prayed in verse 2 that grace and peace would be multiplied to his readers, he now assures them that this gracious God has given us what is necessary for salvation so that we can live out of God’s abundant provision of these things.

We grasp hold of these things “through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence.”  Knowledge of him is more than intellectual knowledge; it is the knowledge that comes through personal encounter, beginning with conversion.  It is quite possible to have intellectual knowledge about Jesus and not live a godly life.  It is possible to know about Jesus and not experience salvation at all.  We must know him personally for this to apply to us.

Verse three can be translated in more than one way.  “Him who called us to his own glory and excellence” (ESV) or “him who called his by his own glory and excellence” (NIV) are quite different translations.  However, since the Greek is ambiguous, perhaps we could take it both ways.  No doubt God is overflowing with glory and excellence, which probably here means his great manifestations of power to save his people.  He is worthy of praise for these things.  His glory and his moral excellence has motivated and enabled him to call us to himself.  But on the other hand, he has called us to also experience his glory and his moral excellence.  We can be like God because he has called us to himself.  Our salvation is not merely a free trip to heaven sometime in the future, but a transformative experience of God’s power that makes us different people, godly people.

“by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.”  By Christ’s glory and moral excellence, he has granted us great and precious promises.  The promises referred to here are promises Christ has given us for our future.  The promises have a particular goal in mind, namely that we would share in the divine nature.

This is a concept that is not often spoken about.  However, the early church fathers were not shy in speaking about it.  Irenaeus said, “If the Word is made man, it is that men might become gods.”  Basil the Great declared, “From the Holy Spirit there is the likeness of God, and the highest of all things to be desired, to become God.”  And Athanasius said something similar: “God became man so that men might become gods.”

What does this mean?

First of all, what does it not mean?  It does not mean that we will become little versions of God.  It does not mean, for example, that we are able to create things out of nothing.  It does not mean that God intends to make humans completely spirit without a body.  God is spirit but humans will be raised from the dead.  There will continue to be a distinction between God and humans, because humans will not stop being creatures and therefore dependent on God.  We will never share in God’s essence because this can only belong to God and never to a creature.

So what does it mean?  Sharing in the divine nature is the goal of salvation.  It is the goal set out by God in the beginning when he made humans in his image and likeness.  God’s goal was not complete at that time.  Adam and Eve were made without sin and yet they had not attained maturity as such.  When God gave the command to not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Gen 2:17), he intended that Adam and Eve would grow to maturity by trusting his word to them.  But instead they fell into sin.  They failed to say ‘no’ to the devil.  So the goal for human existence was interrupted by sin, yet it is enabled by the work of Christ.  Sharing the divine nature is the fulfilment of being the likeness of God.

Peter speaks of “the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.”  In the present humans are mortal and corruptible.  The corruption we experience is both physical and sinful corruption.  The world is not meant to be subject to corruption but because people sin, both the physical world around us and our physical bodies become corrupted.  That is, moral corruption leads to physical, bodily corruption.  Believers will be able to share in the divine nature after they have escaped from the moral corruption caused by sinful desire.  This will also mean that the physical, bodily corruption will be no more.  When Jesus returns for his people, they will share the likeness of God in immortality and incorruptibility.  There will be no more death and no more capacity for sin.  Becoming immortal and incorruptible is one aspect of sharing the divine nature.

Another way of saying that we escape corruption and share the divine nature is to say that we will undergo transformation into godlike character.  It is not that we will gain omnipotence, omniscience and omnipresence.  These are qualities that only God can have.  But human beings can become like God in terms of his character.  God is gracious, loving, holy and righteous.  These are characteristics that human beings can share.  The Bible is full of exhortations to share God’s character.  For example, “Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children.  And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God” (Eph. 5:1-2 ESV).  The future transformation actually begins in the present as the Holy Spirit works to sanctify us.

Finally, sharing the divine nature means both union and communion with God.  Union with God does not mean fusion with God; the distinction between humans and God remains.  However, it does mean an intense closeness of relationship.  We will share in the divine life, that is, the intimate love relationship between Father and Son mediated by the Holy Spirit.  The Bible describes this experience beginning now.  John tells us in his first epistle that “our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ” (1 John 1:3).  Through Christ we have access to the Father by one Spirit (Eph 2:18).  God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit – promises to come and make a home with us (John 14:16, 23).  But in the eschatological future it will be forever far more wonderful.  Our communion with God will be like the communion that Jesus has with his Father in the Trinity.  He is a human being as well as God and as a human being he knows the Father through the Spirit in a way that is unprecedented for a human.  Yet he shares that with us.  This is what we will experience when we become partakers of the divine nature.

So we know what the goal of human existence is.  It is to share the divine nature.  But what are we to do now as a consequence of this amazing future goal?  Are we just supposed to rejoice in this and wait for it to happen?  No!  We are not meant to be passive about it.  There are actions which we must take today if we are to reach the goal.  The verses which follow spell this out for us.

“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. 8 For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins. 10 Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election, for if you practice these qualities you will never fall. 11 For in this way there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ” (2 Pet. 1:5-11 ESV).

The future that God has for us is something that we must make every effort to live out now.  This is stated twice: in verse 5 and again in verse 10.  Make every effort to add to your faith.  Make every effort to confirm your calling and election.  None of these things are things that we have earned.  Calling and election are enacted by God before we were born (Eph 1:4), and faith is a gift given by the Holy Spirit (Eph 2:8).  Neither can be experienced apart from grace.  Yet the fact of our calling and election and the truth of our faith must certainly affect our choices in the present.

What are we exhorted to add to our faith?  Virtue, knowledge, self-control, steadfastness, godliness, brotherly affection and love.  Some of the things we are told to strive for are things which we may say about God.  If we possess virtue, love, and godliness this is to be like God.  Others in the list help us to get to the goal, like perseverance and self-control.  (Knowledge in this verse is knowledge about Jesus rather than the personal knowledge mentioned earlier.)  But each of these involves effort.  We cannot expect this to simply happen.  We must make every effort.  It must be a deliberate choice to pursue the future that is promised to us.

“For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.”  This implies that it is an ongoing process that happens throughout life.  There is a degree of comfort in this truth.  I know that I have failed to attain to any and all of these things.  It does not matter if I have not yet arrived.  What matters is that I make every effort so that the qualities listed here are increasing and growing in my life.  Diligence is required because it is easy to get lazy and stop trying.  We cannot be content with the status quo.  Without continued vigilance there is a tendency to go backwards.

There is a sober warning here.  “For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins.”  If we do not make the effort to do the things listed here, it is because we have become nearsighted and blind, forgetting that we have been cleansed from our sins.  In other words, those who do not strive towards the future goal of the Christian life have forgotten the gospel.  They have forgotten what God has done for them.

There is also a promise.  “if you practice these qualities you will never fall.  For in this way there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.”  Diligence pays off both now and in the future.  We can be assured that if through God’s grace we pursue the future sharing of the divine life that he has promised, we will enter into the eternal kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ.  This is never a matter of our own works because, as we were told in verse 3, Christ has given us all things for life and godliness.  We know Jesus because he has called us to himself, and he has given us great promises in order to bring us to the goal of human existence.  If we trust him and his promises and strive towards this goal in the power he gives to us, then we will arrive and enter the kingdom.  In a sense it is utterly Christ’s doing and yet we are called to cooperate with him in achieving the goal.  We cannot do it without him and he does not achieve it without our cooperation and desire.

So the question for today is not whether you have ever heard of this idea, but what are you choosing to do about it.  What choices do you need to make in your life in order to go hard after the goal of sharing in the divine nature?  What must you be more diligent about?  How are you going to add virtue and knowledge and perseverance and brotherly affection and love to your faith?  Which of these is missing from your life?

Or to put this another way: have you forgotten what God has done for you?  Remind yourself of the good news of the gospel.  Have you forgotten what God has promised to you?  Stir up again that vision of the future kingdom, because that vision makes the hard work of living as a Christian something worthwhile.  Have you forgotten what the goal of human existence is?  Then look again to God and consider again what it means to be like God in purity and holiness and truth.