And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge;
Giving all diligence means continually adding to genuine saving faith that joins to Christ and shows in obedience, first moral excellence of pure holy character and courageous firmness, then intelligent experiential knowledge of God and Christ and His Word gained by searching Scripture and practicing the light. Virtue must cleanse mind and heart before true knowledge can be received, for seeking knowledge while neglecting virtue leads only to argument without piety and spiritual blindness. This adding is a daily step-by-step climb up an eight-step ladder toward the divine image, with Christ Himself as the ladder, not finishing one grace before beginning another but having all abound together, and failing to advance is to fall. It is possible because divine power gives all things for life and godliness through precious promises, while God multiplies grace and peace as believers cooperate by working out their salvation, depending on Christ, praying, and exercising every power. When these graces are present and abounding believers are fruitful in the knowledge of Christ, make their calling and election sure and receive abundant entrance into the everlasting kingdom, but those who lack them are spiritually blind, forgetful of cleansing, and empty in profession.
Meaning of Faith Virtue Knowledge
The faith to be built upon is true, saving and genuine faith, a gift from God that joins even the weakest soul to Christ, works by love and purifies the soul, and is shown in obedience, virtuous character and practical godliness rather than mere assent, profession or spurious self-confident criticism. It is developed by earnest effort and constant diligence through the grace of Christ, not by a single act or surface profession, but by a lifelong plan of addition in which virtue is added to faith and then knowledge and the further graces of temperance, patience, godliness, brotherly kindness and charity. This adding is the first and simplest sum in attaining Christian perfection, acquired not by vain show but by understanding in genuine simplicity what God desires, increasing trust in and reverence for God, and working it out in practical godliness through the merits of Christ. Those who so add become lights amid moral darkness and a power to bless, laborers together with God through the practical work of the gospel and the Holy Spirit upon mind and heart, while claiming belief without practicing truth leaves one spiritually blind and stunts growth.
In the verse virtue means moral excellence, moral goodness, purity and holiness of character in thought, words, actions, perception and doctrine. It is well-doing and virtuous character to be cultivated in order as part of a life of obedience, not as successive flights of feeling, built upon faith by diligent continuing effort and slothfulness and indolence steadily overcome. It is demonstrated in life by refusing to speak or practice lies, always speaking truth, and carrying out God's sentiments by mercy. Faith without such virtue is worthless, while right faith brings virtue more valuable than gold, silver or precious stones.
Virtue joined to faith also means courage and strength and firmness of character to reprove sin, execute justice and say no at the right time and place, using mild measures first and stronger ones if needed. Eli's faith lacked this firmness to preserve God's honor and keep the church and Israel pure, failing to sound a clear warning when required.
Knowledge to be added means intelligent, steadily increasing, experiential understanding of God, Jesus Christ, His redeeming work, the truth as it is in Jesus, the plan of salvation, and God's commandments and laws in His Word as guide and instructor. It is gained by reverence, prayer, searching Scripture as the textbook, practicing what is learned, walking in daily light, storing up Bible treasures to impart to others, using knowledge of Scripture to meet Satan with It is written, and looking beyond human teachers to God as Instructor. It is supreme, sound, necessary and explainable according to the light God gives, cleanses the heart, safeguards against temptation and deception including claims that God is in nature, and equips for defense of the faith and service, and only a hundredth part of privileged knowledge is yet possessed.
Knowledge of God is limited because people fail to walk in the light given each day, while growing in knowledge and acting on instruction brings strength to overcome temptation and stand firm against the enemy. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, meaning understanding and fearing to offend the Creator, remaining ignorant is no credit, ignorance is no excuse, and those with eyes that see not and ears that hear not reject probation and light. Those who do His will shall know of the doctrine, while those who refuse to be wise in the knowledge of Christ will be banished from His presence when judgment sits and the books are opened.
The order is significant: virtue must first be added to cleanse mind and heart so they are ready to receive true knowledge. After receiving the faith of the gospel the first work is to add virtuous and pure principles, and with a pure mind and heart the believer can add knowledge of God's Word and use it to defend the faith, which becomes the foundation of true education and likeness to God in character. Seeking knowledge while neglecting virtue and destroying nerve power leads to argument without piety, poor witness, self-righteousness, spiritual blindness, and a weakened confused mind left adrift. No one can gain true knowledge while pursuing a course that sacrifices virtue and destroys nerve power, for a weakened, confused, unbalanced mind goes anywhere and anyhow, unable to keep God's commandments or be an example, while learning separated from God hinders valuing divine power, purity and glory. God wants every nerve of the brain preserved in the most sacred manner and the mind kept straight and intelligent, abstaining from anything eaten or drunk for gratification, especially liquor that confuses the brain so right and wrong cannot be distinguished, moving from virtue to knowledge and from knowledge to temperance.
Continuing to add virtue to faith and to rich God-given endowments such as wisdom, with an ardent temperament guided aright, keeps life illustrious to its close like a grand noble cedar of Lebanon. Refusing it means choosing to be controlled by lust instead of partaking of the divine nature, becoming contaminated and forsaken, as shown by Solomon falling through uncontrolled passion after greatness and power.
Faith joined with virtuous character makes intellectual Christians whose mental and moral powers grow together. Divine grace develops and strengthens the intellect, and well-ordered lives, godly conduct and good works make them a light to others and lead souls to truth.
Sequence Ladder and Progress
The verse commands giving all diligence to a continual daily progressive step-by-step plan of addition, adding virtue to faith and knowledge to virtue and then continuing through temperance, patience, godliness, brotherly kindness and charity, building grace upon grace and growing upward in Christian character. This growth is not by chance or by a single action, and failing to advance leads to falling, while living by the plan multiplies grace and peace through knowing God and Jesus. Faith is the starting point to be built on, virtue and knowledge are joined to it by earnest effort, and the presence of the growing graces makes believers fruitful in the knowledge of Christ, gives assurance against falling, and points toward abundant entrance into the everlasting kingdom. Patience in the sequence depends on temperance, because unchecked appetite harms the body and leads to nervous hasty impatient speech, while self-control keeps a person fit for God's work to glorify Him in word and action. Since believers belong to God, the advance moves from patience to godliness as Christlikeness in thought, word and deed, and then to brotherly kindness shown in gentle unirritated conduct in the home.
The verse begins an eight-step eight-round ladder to be climbed round by round heavenward toward glory, virtue and conformity to the divine image. The ladder is Christ connecting earth with heaven, whose humanity reaches fallen humanity and whose divinity reaches God's throne, and it is climbed by looking to and clinging to Him and mounting toward His heights. Addition does not mean finishing one grace before beginning another, but having all the graces manifest together and abounding in character like bricks building a firm wall. Those seeking to separate evil in the carnal heart must cultivate the graces daily as a sum to prove in perfecting character, beginning with virtue added to faith and knowledge to virtue as first steps continuing to temperance, patience, godliness, brotherly kindness and charity, immediately following escape from corruption through lust and partaking of the divine nature. Faithfulness in this daily climbing brings fruitfulness rather than barrenness, keeps from falling, makes calling and election sure, and will bring conversion of hundreds and thousands as on the day of Pentecost.
Climbing is laying hold on Christ the Mediator and advancing by Christ with the eye fixed on God above the ladder, leaving past guilt behind and refusing to look down, drawn higher by multiplied grace and living connection with God until partaking of the divine nature. The ladder stands firmly upon the earth as the only safety for reaching heaven, and every round must be climbed without stopping. Climbing requires sitting at Jesus' feet to learn meekness and self-denial and taking steps upward, since earthliness blocks the way and leaves those in responsible places who neglect climbing in mist and fog and great spiritual danger. To let go of Christ or relax diligence for a moment is to cease to climb and to fall and perish, for heaven cannot be entered without constant striving by believing and working, trusting Jesus yet straining every nerve and diminishing by successive steps the distance from God in perfect obedience to all His commandments.
Sanctification and Bible holiness under the verse are progressive rather than instantaneous or completed in a moment by baptism, joining the church, or learning only first steps. The work begins only after peace with God through the atonement, then goes on to perfection and the full stature of Christ through warfare of human weakness united to divine strength, with no graduation in this life, no standstill, and no promise to one who retrogrades or stops, since received grace is lost unless one goes forward. Adding virtue to faith with knowledge and the other graces is the greatest work of this life and preparation for a future life measuring with the life of God, to be read and practiced day by day with most earnest effort and all diligence in practical godliness. Doing this work gives the grace of Christ to work out the sum, secures the eternal life insurance Christ gave His life to make possible through grace received in obedience, and enlists the whole self as a soldier of the cross under Christ as Captain until victory is gained.
Growth is gradual and cooperative, made step by step by meeting and overcoming each obstacle in turn, doing each day's work faithfully without being overwhelmed, looking to Jesus with the eye fixed on Christ, and relying on His merits and strength. Believers form right habits, practice self-denial, study from cause to effect without overloading to weakness, and overcome faults and temptation, while without His strength temptation carries toward destruction. The ladder of sanctification cannot be climbed in one effort, sanctification is not completed in a moment or maintained without continued effort, and failing to advance leads to falling and losing eternal life. Overcoming is an individual struggle against the powers of darkness in which God works in believers and supplies grace and help to struggle against evil, enabling them to be more than conquerors and to keep progressing upward toward heaven without failure.
In the sequence temperance follows knowledge and stands before patience because an intemperate person is seldom patient. Temperance means sensible control of all organs and powers in eating, drinking, dressing, labor and all things, avoiding harmful indulgence that injures brain nerve power and digestion such as alcohol, tobacco, liquor, tea, coffee, gorging, overloading the stomach and eating great variety at one meal, and instead using intelligence and reason from cause to effect to eat only what agrees with the body. Intemperance weakens mind, makes it impossible to discern spiritual things clearly and distinguish sacred from common, destroys happiness and peace, and produces a wrought-up peevish irritable sour disposition, while temperance preserves clear judgment, keeps the stomach peaceful, promotes peace among brethren, preserves health with God's blessing, and does for a person what no physician can do. After temperance and patience godliness must be added as its very outgrowth, godliness being the spirit and likeness of the character of Jesus Christ raised to His divine ideal, with virtue meaning virtuous character of purity and holiness demonstrated in life and knowledge meaning constantly increasing understanding of Scripture. Mere book learning without the Bible can never mount to the highest round, and growth also depends on the Holy Spirit while people do what is within their control.
When the successive steps are complete, perfect love is the crowning grace: supreme love for God and love for others, with love for God leading to brotherly kindness and charity. Charity as the perfect love of God is the highest step in Bible sanctification, leading to abundant entrance into God's kingdom. Adding godliness to patience means reverence for God, His character, holiness and law with awareness of His holiness, cultivated by communion with God through prayer and Scripture and regarding sin as God does. Escaping worldly corruption and understanding true godliness means putting away idols, loving God supremely and delighting to keep His commandments, and godliness leading to brotherly kindness guards against excusing sin and becoming harsh toward those who are faithful.
The ladder has lower rounds and a first round where beginners and poor discouraged souls must be met where they are and taught where to place their feet rather than expected to reach an advanced stage at once. Leading men and women to the first round is where the work of saving them begins, since standing above the lower rounds and saying come up with precise methods is of little value because souls below do not know how to climb. Barren unworked fields must be entered by beginners, and confidence in the Saviour's view inspires them so that if they begin in humility and put heart into the work they become the right persons for the time and place. This diligent climbing round by round by faithful work from teachers and students is what makes schools a power, not size of buildings or number of advanced studies taught.
Divine Power Human Cooperation
The growth commanded is made possible by divine power giving all things that pertain to life and godliness, and by exceeding great and precious promises received through knowing God and Jesus, by which believers cooperate with Christ, partake of the divine nature, and escape the corruption in the world through lust. Christ clothed His divinity with humanity, bore the curse of the law, was tempted in all points yet without yielding and overcame, so that every person may overcome in the same way. God does nothing without human cooperation, and the promises are conditional on following His directions, for He supplies divine power, promises, and the Holy Spirit while people resist temptation and follow His training. These qualities belong to a growing sequence describing the character Christians are to develop, to be added daily as part of the life in which character is perfected and made fruitful in the knowledge of Jesus Christ.
The verse sets out the human side of a definite divine plan of addition and God's plan of multiplication: as believers add grace to grace, cooperate with God, and work out salvation, God and Christ work for them multiplying grace, peace, blessings, efficiency, and the heavenly gift. He supplies power to obey every command and resist evil, and this linked divine and human agency applies to all spiritual achievements as well as to temporal matters including mechanical, agricultural, mercantile, and scientific pursuits. It belongs to God's pledge to those who keep on to know Him and share that knowledge, and living by this plan of addition while using God's grace to benefit others is met by God's multiplication of grace. Doing this work day by day gives the grace of Christ to work out the sum, makes victors at last, and secures what Christ gave His life to make possible for every soul through His grace received in obedience.
This growth comes only through dependence on Christ as the sole hope and entire dependence, coming to Him with little trials and large perplexities and telling them all to Jesus, believing He will help as strength and sympathizing Friend who is touched with the feeling of infirmities. It means carrying every trial to Jesus in prayer, grasping privileges, shunning temptation, abiding in Him under the Holy Spirit, laying hold upon the Holy Spirit, and keeping trust in Jesus as author and finisher. People must do what is within their control while depending on the Spirit, including erecting the family altar in every home morning and evening, bringing the whole family before God, recognizing dependence upon Him and the claims of His service, keeping eternal reality before every member, and confessing Christ as Leader, Captain, and divine Teacher in the home. Trusting human power and losing sight of Jesus leads to failure, for lack of the Holy Spirit comes from failing to abide in Christ and use the grace and riches of heaven freely provided.
The verse demands no halfway work, no divided service between Satan and Christ, and no mingling the common with the sacred. The whole being, heart, life, and character is to be molded after the pattern given in Christ, who took human nature and was tempted in all points without being overcome in a single point, proving that men and women can fulfill all righteousness. God gave all the facilities of heaven through a crucified and risen Saviour, and doing these things means keeping the perfect law that converts the soul and will decide the case of every person. Cherishing common fire obscures spiritual eyesight so that the sacred and the common cannot be discerned and causes the Lord to turn away with displeasure, for this growth must be worked from inward to outward as the Holy Spirit works.
Giving all diligence means acting upon light and evidence received with the service of the whole mind and heart, calling every capability into use, stretching every spiritual nerve and muscle, and bringing oneself into order by walking carefully, humbly, and trustfully before God. It means earnest united prayer for the Lord to reveal Himself, faithfully using abilities according to natural and cultivated powers, and reading and practicing the instruction with heart-searching and study that brings help, strength, and blessing. This wholehearted response produces advance movement and decided victory, as seen when souls long on the point of decision take their stand to keep the Sabbath. Partial effort, careless reliance on one's own judgment instead of God and His Word, and living by subtraction instead of addition leave ministers and believers spiritually feeble and unsteady.
Character is built by laying one grace upon another through faithful practice and good deeds, learning from Christ and growing in grace and truth into a harmonious life. Faith, patience, temperance, benevolence, courage, self-denial, devotion, obedience, and wholehearted service contribute to this harmonious life, with energy and love increasing as they are exercised and remaining steadfast despite ridicule. The faithful servants who increased the talents entrusted to them illustrate this principle, for they used what they had received and gained more, while the servant who hid his talent failed to put it to use. Character is shaped by one's choices and diligent improvement in learning where character is deficient and working to overcome those deficiencies, while Christ guides this education and God supplies grace and strength as people do right.
Virtues and graces are diligently cultivated by living in communion with God and seeking by faith and prayer to know and do His will. Christ sets before the learner every virtue and every feature of Christian excellence and adds one endowment after another to the one who holds His graces until He looks on him with delight.
Fruitfulness Assurance and Loss
When faith is built upon by adding virtue, then knowledge, and continuing through the further graces, and these qualities are present and abounding and keep increasing, believers are fruitful and neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of Christ, while doing this work daily by reading and practicing the chapter makes victors at last. Faith without corresponding works is empty, and mere profession without growth leaves the professed Christian still in sin. This growth is progressive and requires earnest continuing effort rather than being attained without diligence.
Diligently doing these things makes calling and election sure, keeps believers from ever falling, and ministers an abundant entrance into the everlasting kingdom of Christ unto eternal life. That entrance includes translation, fellowship with holy angels, an imperishable crown and the crown of life for those who persevere, with growth in grace and purification and preparation for heaven. Neglecting this plan brings spiritual blindness and falling and puts eternal life at risk.
Whoever lacks these graces is spiritually blind, unable to see afar off, forgetful of cleansing from old sins, unaware of spiritual poverty, and spiritually feeble. Mere profession without practice leaves one in sin, deceived, stunted, and revealing satanic attributes, with no words able to help until humble and contrite and yoked with Christ. Refusing to add them means failing to meet the conditions of the promise.
Complying with the conditions is the true eternal life insurance policy, better than worldly policies or secret orders such as Free Mason life insurance. It was secured by Christ giving His life to make it possible for every soul through grace received in obedience to the law of God, and taking stock in it insures life in the heavenly courts and gives title to the immortal inheritance. It enables partaking of the divine nature, resisting temptation, and escaping the corruption in the world through lust, and requires cultivating the graces of the Spirit degree after degree in practical godliness and home life, adding grace to grace day by day, climbing round by round heavenward toward glory and conformity to the divine image, and laying hold of the promises in Jesus' name.
Faithfully living the verse brings broad blessings, for God distinguishes the obedient as righteous with peace, comfort, joy, assurance, good hope, power from above, and a sure foundation. He multiplies wisdom, strength, and every good thing, makes obedience perfect through Christ's righteousness, and gives multiplied grace and peace to those who follow His Word. Believers become channels of light showing others the way, with praise put in heart and lips causing others to look on in astonishment and come to truth, with light shining from a holy temple molded after Christ, converting many, even hundreds and thousands as at Pentecost.
The verse gives comfort and encouragement to all who have obtained like precious faith. When its truths fill heart and mind they give strength to resist looking on the dark side, talking discouragement, murmuring, or separation from God. Instead believers break forth in praise, song, and thanksgiving with satisfaction of knowing themselves children of God and heirs of heaven, with the promise claimable today while mercy lingers and the way to approach God is still open.
The virtues are precious treasures making a person more precious than fine gold. The character to be formed during earthly life in Christ's likeness, in spiritual-mindedness, love for God and neighbor, and faithful conduct, built like a temple through patience, temperance, benevolence, courage, self-denial, brotherly love, courtesy, and humility, is the definite outline required for entrance into God's city. Mere profession, good deeds alone, a peaceful death, disobedience, or treating self as law does not qualify, and only loyal citizens living by the Word and practicing righteousness will enter, receive an immortal crown, and be prepared for translation and fellowship with holy angels.
Living on the plan of addition means walking humbly with God without questioning, taking no backward steps but following on to know the Lord with rejoicing at every advance. It means gaining all the time in efficiency, usefulness, and holiness as a fruit-bearing tree, strengthening every grace to resist daily temptation and evil angels' deceptions, and gaining a relish for heavenly things, since remaining ignorant is no credit. It requires daily upward progress taxing the highest powers like soldiers trained for battle rather than parade, overcoming difficulties and strong temptations to take a downward course, and refusing a half-hearted, sleepy, indifferent experience by seeking the Lord while He may be found and coming out without spot or wrinkle.
The added graces form the wedding garment of Christ's character needed to be ready for His return, with God's power enabling victory as believers keep growing. Those who live this way place themselves where truth has cleansing, refining, elevating power raising them to a tower no worldly sophistry can climb. This adding life honors the Redeemer by works that testify to the truth and keep believers to truth instead of fallacy.
Education and Mental Cultivation
The qualities to be added to faith are the highest education, a scriptural education that leads to a life in harmony with God and prepares for eternal life. This education is found in God's Word from the Master Teacher, not in instruction that rejects God's authority and commandments. Those who love God and keep His commandments receive divine help in every effort to advance, talents entrusted for His service improve by exercise, and as students work on the plan of addition by acquiring more and more, the Lord works on the plan of multiplication imparting greater efficiency and still more of the heavenly gift as it is shared. If these graces are in them and abound they will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, complete in Christ bearing the similitude of the divine nature, with free pardon and re-admission to the family of God and help in every step heavenward until changed from glory to glory, from character to character, into the image of God. Diligently cultivating virtue and knowledge through faith in God and His power makes Christians wise, skilled, correct in speech and habits and able to stand well among others, for Christ's religion elevates rather than degrades, and God provides wisdom to draw upon in growing toward the highest stage of Christian character to glorify Him.
True education consists in diligently building virtue on faith and knowledge on virtue, and learning this growth in Christian character from the Word is the highest education. It applies to children in every home and school, requiring improving abilities and talents already possessed and advancing in wisdom and favor with God and people. Slothfulness and indolence must be steadily overcome, for a virtuous character is of highest value and the quality of work matters more than its quantity in the final judgment. The Christian life is a plan of addition in which believers with diligence keep growing in faith, grace and knowledge rather than rising and falling through careless words or wrong actions, and this steady growth requiring prayer and doing God's will prepares for eternal life and for seeing the King in His beauty. It requires hearts sensitive to the Holy Spirit and practical living of Christ's life, and these qualities when present and increasing make believers fruitful in knowing Jesus Christ.
Believers who have acknowledged faith in Christ through baptism and received the pledge of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are to do this diligent progressive work of adding virtue to faith and knowledge to virtue and then continuing to add the graces that follow, and as they add, God multiplies grace and peace. Advancement is made step by step by keeping the focus on Jesus and the glory of God rather than trying to take in all difficulties and stages at once. The intellect is to be cultivated to fit for doing God's will so that time and mental powers produce fruit and overcome evil propensities, learning from God's Word and applying it rather than settling for ease or a low standard.
Schools and sanitariums are means of gaining knowledge and understanding lessons, and are to serve God's purpose rather than the pursuit of wealth, for virtue is character and believers should seek knowledge. Students have the privilege and opportunity to increase in knowledge and in grace unto perfection of Christian character. This growth is a privilege for teachers and students alike and part of God's plan for a fruitful life that glorifies Him, requiring every effort to add virtue to faith and knowledge to virtue. Knowledge means getting an education, including schooling and training children from babyhood by never speaking a cross word or scolding, because even little children know a scolding voice, and by treating them gently without letting them have everything they want, but firmly saying no to what will not do them good and repeating it until they understand it is meant.
The verse strikes the keynote of victory for youth pursuing an education. Those who know their own weakness must go to God for strength and make Christ their all in all even while studying, rather than giving their minds up almost wholly to study or they will lose all that enriches life, and its words full of instruction with truth impressively forced upon the mind by the way it is presented are to be studied abundantly and practiced as precepts. Grace is added to grace and grace and peace are multiplied as growth proceeds, and this principle applies to young people preparing themselves for useful work through earnest effort. Youth are to multiply the talents God has given them and grow in character through continued effort in adding virtue and the other qualities as they prepare for life in God's kingdom. Believers are to grow in faith in Jesus their living Head, becoming apt scholars in Christ's school and stronger, more useful Christians.
Giving all diligence to add virtue to faith and knowledge to virtue belongs to the experiences in the first chapter of Second Peter that fit men and women to become efficient workers for God, to be studied by all who offer themselves for service and directed to the work they can do. This requires consecrating body and soul, training diligently in humility rather than trusting natural ability, and growing into workers who both receive and impart truth.
The plan of addition beginning with faith is instruction for parents and children, calling them with all diligence to add virtue to faith and knowledge to virtue as part of the virtues set forth in 2 Peter 1:1-13. These qualities belong to the Christian character parents need as they educate their children and deal with them in a way that reveals the Spirit of Christ. They must be studied diligently and added to faith and practiced in spiritual experience, and doing these things gives assurance of treading securely and walking understandingly in the knowledge of Jesus Christ and never falling. This growth is to be taught from childhood through steady instruction in God's Word and practiced in family life, as children learn humility, meekness, temperance, kindness, patience, longsuffering and responsibility. Parents must climb as overcomers to lead children step by step, carefully and kindly teach them, guide their character, bring them in prayer for forgiveness when cross and impatient, teach them how to preserve health and help bear family duties, and prepare them for partaking of the divine nature, for church fellowship and baptism, for overcoming as Christ overcame, and for the immortal inheritance, with obedience to God's Word and this growth in character as conditions for the promised eternal life.
God requires diligent growth in mental, moral and physical attainments, adding virtue to virtue and strength to strength to become strong in the Lord with intelligence and ability to think and plan for positions of trust. Christ died to make this rising possible, so remaining on a low level is failure to do what God requires, and each person must now go to work with firm determination to rise, because the need is not for more men but for more manhood. Those who take the name of Christian are to honor that name by having the mind thoroughly cultivated and pursuing every aspiration and enterprise that pure religion sanctions, and obeying this instruction brings rich blessing. Faith joined with virtue and virtue with knowledge is a diligent daily work of sanctification through cooperation with the Spirit of God; it develops knowledge and capabilities and prepares believers for greater usefulness in their calling. Believers are to keep adding grace to grace as they overcome, holding fast to what they have received from God rather than treating spiritual growth as something they can take up and leave at will. This growth in knowledge of the truth is connected with loving Christ and the truth and becoming one with Christ and the Father, and belongs to attending to one's own salvation and gaining wisdom to give others right instruction. True religion elevates rather than degrades, making the strong, intelligent, mature and useful with correct speech and habits.
Christianity is a science to be mastered, deeper, broader and higher than any human science as the heavens are higher than the earth. Mastering it requires giving all diligence in disciplining, educating and training the mind for service to God in ways contrary to inborn inclination, overcoming inherited and cultivated tendencies to evil, often discarding the training and education of a lifetime to become a learner in the school of Christ. It requires educating the heart to become steadfast in God, forming habits of thought that enable resistance to temptation, learning to look upward, and understanding the principles of the Word of God in their bearing on daily life so that every act, word and thought is in accord with principles as high as heaven and compassing eternity. The graces to be added to faith are the precious graces of the Holy Spirit and they are not developed in a moment, but courage, fortitude, meekness, faith and unwavering trust in God's power to save are acquired by the experience of years, and by a life of holy endeavor and firm adherence to the right the children of God seal their destiny.
Growth in the graces of Christian character means much more than human minds comprehend and requires more Bible study and a more perfect understanding of Scripture. This growth produces a sound, solid experience of what constitutes the pillars of faith, a well-grounded foundation that storm and tempest cannot move and that makes understanding of the Scriptures certain and sure beyond danger. It gives the Christian experience and healthful, sound mind needed to discern the true voice of the Shepherd from that of a stranger amid strange elements in the church.
Home Health and Daily Conduct
The verse reaches into parents' responsibility and family life, calling children and youth to work by addition in spiritual as well as temporal things, advancing in understanding and mental growth to become skillful, thorough workers wearing Christ's yoke and lifting His burdens. Faith joined with virtue and virtue joined with knowledge forms a continuing plan of addition that puts away evil, develops godly character, and shapes the home, including how children are taught to treat others. That growth rests on everyone who professes to follow Christ, and a child who develops faith, virtue, and knowledge in service to God is being prepared to answer Christ's call to a higher life. Faithfulness in family life, patience, self-denial, and temperance build Christian character, including refusing liquor, tobacco, and other narcotics so mind and nerves retain strength and remain under control. Parents are to guide children through prayer and conversation and discipline them with tenderness and sorrow rather than uncontrolled anger, while health reform and self-control in food support children's moral and spiritual development. Teaching is to proceed step by step, putting away cheap frivolous conversation, and directing physical, mental, moral, and religious education in what is good, virtuous, righteous, and holy.
Continuing the addition through temperance means sensible, disciplined control of appetite and passions and of all organs and powers in eating, drinking, dressing, labor, and all things, offering the body as a holy acceptable sacrifice to honor God. It requires avoiding harmful indulgence that injures brain nerve power and the digestive organs, forbidding tobacco, liquor, drugged liquor, tea, coffee, gorging, overloading the stomach, eating a great variety at one meal, or eating merely for gratification. Instead reason is to be used from cause to effect to eat only what agrees with the body, since intemperance weakens mind and judgment, makes it impossible to discern spiritual things clearly or distinguish sacred from common, destroys life happiness, peace, and a favorable impression of truth, and produces a wrought-up, peevish, irritable disposition. Temperance preserves clear judgment, health with God's blessing, peace among brethren, and sacred influence, keeping the stomach peaceful and doing for a person what no physician can do. Growth in this character also depends on the Holy Spirit, with people doing what is within their control while depending on the Spirit, and calls for complete diligence rather than partial effort or careless reliance on one's own judgment.
Knowledge added to virtue means intelligent understanding of the evil of intemperance, so believers of all ages put whole power against it, sign the temperance pledge when presented, encourage reform workers, help others, and never remain indifferent to souls. That work includes laboring to close liquor saloons in the cities that sell drugged liquor making men mad and are sustained by men in judicial positions, and carefully self-guarding in eating and drinking injurious nonintoxicants such as tea and coffee against a keen enemy determined to win.
Temperance stands in order before patience because an intemperate person is seldom patient, since intemperate appetite and stimulating substances excite the nerves and make patience impossible. Healthful unstimulating food and regulated habits give calm nerves and mental clearness to discern good from evil, making patience possible as calm, unexcited endurance. Patience endures trials, provocations, annoyances, reproach, disappointment, losses, crosses, slander, and hurt feelings without murmur, complaint, hasty words, or angry retaliation, ruling the spirit, slow to anger and slow to speak, giving soft answers, forgetting slights, leaving reputation with God, rising above worldly customs with uncomplaining dignity, and counting it joy to endure for Christ. It is a heavenly attribute learned from Christ, giving moral grandeur greater than taking a city, and it must have its perfect work to make a person perfect and entire, wanting nothing.
Patience depends on temperance because unchecked appetite harms the body and leads to nervous, hasty, impatient speech, while self-control keeps a person fit for God's work. Since believers belong to God their words and actions are to glorify Him, with patience leading on to godliness expressed by being Christlike in thought, word, and deed, and then to brotherly kindness shown through gentle, unirritated conduct in the home. These qualities are cultivated step by step as grace and peace are multiplied, requiring cultivation of the graces of the Spirit, right use of speech to bless and strengthen, crucifying of self, and strong love for Christ and for one another. Living this way means letting heaven's light guide the heart, yielding wrong dispositions and habits, correcting mistakes, guarding words to avoid irritation and strife, cutting out selfishness, lifting the work higher, and waking from inaction. Those who work out this addition in practical genuine godliness through Christ's merits become lights amid moral darkness, receive power to resist Satan, and obtain peace through genuine simplicity.
The growth belongs to continuing growth in grace and knowledge under the Holy Spirit from faith upward, requiring daily diligence, constant exercise of faith, cooperation with God's power, keeping His commandments, and faithfully performing Christian duties. Unkindness and harshness show failure to discern Christ's love and purity. Truth received should elevate taste, sanctify judgment, purify the church, develop holy character, comely manners, and guileless speech, separate from the world without coarseness, and fit for translation and association with angels.
The call to cultivate the Christian graces applies to choosing plain dress, avoiding useless ornament and display, and not fostering love of dress in children, with each person responsible to do the work entrusted by God and to answer for it before Him. Reaching brotherly kindness requires humility and freedom from self-righteousness reflecting sympathy with Christ, and then believers can value the work of Christian missions. The light that ought to shine from believers in good works is patience, long-suffering, gentleness, meekness, brotherly kindness, love, and godliness, and when bodily infirmity keeps God's people from committed work there is great loss to the church and that light is shut away from the world.
Those professing to be the light of the world must depart from all iniquity and be constantly developing in character, true virtue, and godliness, living as in God's sight. Mind and heart are to be thoroughly imbued with Christ's spirit and solemnized by the sacred message, so every thought, action, and motive is above the earthly and sensual, happiness is found not in forbidden selfish gratification but in Jesus, and characters are formed that Christ will not be ashamed to call brethren, each receiving according to deeds done in the body. This steady religious growth is expressed in truthful words and conduct with genuine piety and firm principle, grounded in knowledge of truth and reasons for faith learned by searching Scripture, lest neglect leave a person vulnerable to false theories.
The verse states principles of heaven for every officer, guardian, and shepherd standing in lot and place, to be written and hung in the chambers of the mind, adding moral goodness to faith, understanding to moral goodness, and continuing through self-control, patience, godliness, brotherly kindness, and love. Its chapter is especially meant for the church as a people and the little company keeping the Sabbath to walk in the royal path, to be read, studied, and obeyed in letter and spirit with wholehearted commitment, watchfulness, and prayer. Doing this addition lays aside distrust of brethren because distrust brings bondage, putting men and women under Christ's control and uniting His people, showing on Christ's side even in business transactions and marking the difference between God's kingdom and the world's principles. It requires laboring together steadfastly in the harvest field as sowers and reapers, steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the Lord's work.
The verse is to be studied verse by verse as a caution calling to seek the Lord and walk in humility in relation to sanitarium work, requiring daily seeking of God, putting away superiority, letting truth take root, and practicing Christlike virtues to become vessels of honor. Sanitarium workers are required to stand on higher ground and climb higher away from a low standard, cultivating kindness and tenderness of heart with strong determination and faith in Christ and encouraging the Spirit's presence in heart, mind, and speech. This experience makes impressions for good on patients and unbelievers that are carried away, as heaven's light shines into hearts and minds for lasting influence, which the unaided human agent cannot make but Christ will work with those who work with Him. Applied to God's institutions and medical preparation, the same diligence cultivates intellect and practical discernment without neglecting qualification, building character step by step through work, prayer, belief, and continued learning, with Jesus helping as connection with God expands the soul and deepens responsibility to use abilities wisely.
The verse calls for reaching a high standard in all habits by adding lacking virtues to attainments already gained, gaining knowledge that equips for cooperating with God in serving others after Christ's example and partaking of the divine nature. The Christian graces adorn life through Christ's grace, exchanging deformity for practical godliness, and this growth calls believers to help fellow workers progress rather than disparage them. Seeking first the kingdom of God and His righteousness means doing these principles as first work and foundation with heart, mind, soul, and strength, affecting the entire character. Following them while seeking Christ's righteousness secures life, makes a person one with the Saviour, molds character after Christ's likeness into a holy temple for the Lord, and causes light to shine to church and world, offering comfort by calling believers to come to the Lord for instruction, learn His will, and then do it faithfully.
Mission Service and Witness
Faithfully practicing the addition of virtue to faith and knowledge to virtue, and continuing daily through temperance, patience, godliness, brotherly kindness and love, perfects character, brings fruitfulness in the knowledge of Christ, escapes corruption through lust, and brings the conversion of many, even hundreds and thousands as on the day of Pentecost. Giving all diligence to keep adding grace to grace with no standstill is the plan for victory and climbing round by round heavenward toward glory, virtue and conformity to the divine image, and as faith thus adds, grace and peace are multiplied. Those who do this become diligent students in Christ's school and active laborers in His vineyard, neither barren nor unfruitful, rooted and grounded in truth, living witnesses and workers together with God in restoring His image in man, to whom the transgressed law is no longer a yoke of bondage but the law of liberty. The knowledge added is to guide intelligent efforts to help others, including understanding the harms of intemperance and applying temperance against liquor and other harmful drinks such as tea and coffee. This growth is to shape workers' words and actions through the Spirit's sanctifying influence, with the graces that follow making them fruitful in knowing Christ.
The growth includes earnest commitment to share the truths of the faith, win others to them, and become firmly established in faith by diligent addition of grace to grace. It calls for continual self-denial and sacrifice in working out salvation, as shown by those carrying the message to every nation and language, and for knowing Jesus through experience and taking His life as the pattern, even as He from childhood and at twelve began to show understanding of His work and what lay before Him. Knowledge of Christ is learned through prayer, searching Scripture and practicing His life of self-denial and self-sacrifice, and every believer has a ministry as a soldier of Christ using the intelligence, grace and ability He supplies. Because the world is fast ripening for the close of its history, there is great and earnest work to do, and those truly serving the Lord will be a holy sanctified people communicating light of truth to all around them in their households and outside them, to believers and unbelievers alike, faithfully cultivating spiritual life and using instruction and grace received to help others.
For ministers and those who instruct others in the way to life, adding virtue and knowledge to faith means learning Scripture and the evidences and reasons for faith before instructing others, so they can teach intelligently and faithfully and explain the hope within them. Ministers who fail to keep adding become spiritually feeble and ineffective, while those who grow become skillful workers in sacred service. Living by this deliberate plan includes overcoming impatience and showing gentleness, kindness, tenderness, love and courtesy, which are essential in the conduct of Christ's ministers.
Practical godliness required is the law and the gospel going hand in hand as a perfect whole, neither complete without the other. It sets forth God's great moral standard of righteousness in His holy unchangeable law together with Christ as substitute and surety whose blood cleanses the transgressor and imputes righteousness to believers. The law convicts of sin and draws to Christ but has no saving power to pardon, and the gospel without the law is inefficient and powerless, so true faith returns to allegiance to God's holy law through repentance toward God and faith toward the Lord Jesus Christ, producing unfeigned love and faith.
The example for accomplishing the adding is Christ laying off His royal robe and kingly crown, coming as a little child, taking the liabilities of human nature and concealing divinity so people could follow His steps. His childhood and youth at His father's carpenter bench show how it is done, for He would not be defective even in handling tools, was perfect as a workman as in character, carried cheerfulness and tact into labor, never let worldly care leave Him no time or thought for heaven, often expressed gladness by singing psalms and heavenly songs, was faithful in all He did, and learned lessons and understood and did His duty, and the same faithfulness in learning lessons and doing duty is required. This work belongs to those who have acknowledged faith through baptism and received the pledge of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, is to begin at once and continue through the further graces, and as wickedness increases righteousness should increase.
Living on the plan of addition lets the Lord work for the glory of His name and advancement of His cause, and every soul is called to grow in grace and knowledge of truth by living on it in consecration and humble trust while seeking to know and do religious duty. Working the plan means acting one's part in the fear of God, reverencing Him, keeping the soul in His love and the Lord ever before the mind, making no provision for uniting even for a moment with Satan to forward his schemes, refusing his service and not allowing him to divert the mind from God's work, for he knows human weakness and just what inducements lead astray.
Proving the Lord by working on the plan of addition, adding grace to grace and becoming established in the most holy faith, prepares and obligates believers to reach out for souls ignorant of truth to convince, help and bless them so they do not lose the crown of life. Diligence to make calling and election sure means earnest consecrated zeal to win many to present truth, presenting the most sacred truths ever committed to mortals and carrying them with prayer and diligence to inhabitants of cities in strong city work. The adding shows forth God's glory as revealed through Jesus Christ and magnifies His power, requiring an account for privileges and making the most of them, not in silence or lifeless testimony but with power springing into heart and soul and then speaking with life and power to lift minds to eternal interests. This growth accompanies making calling and election sure and seeking to win others, and by living consistently believers show they are overcoming through the blood of the Lamb and the word of testimony.
Growth is in the qualities of Christ's character by partaking of the divine nature, and understanding the word of truth helps understand His character. This same growth binds believers together in loving fellowship and dependence on one another.
Giving all diligence means continually adding to genuine saving faith that joins to Christ and shows in obedience, first moral excellence of pure holy character and courageous firmness, then intelligent experiential knowledge of God and Christ and His Word gained by searching Scripture and practicing the light.
Virtue must cleanse mind and heart before true knowledge can be received, for seeking knowledge while neglecting virtue leads only to argument without piety and spiritual blindness.
This adding is a daily step-by-step climb up an eight-step ladder toward the divine image, with Christ Himself as the ladder, not finishing one grace before beginning another but having all abound together, and failing to advance is to fall.
It is possible because divine power gives all things for life and godliness through precious promises, while God multiplies grace and peace as believers cooperate by working out their salvation, depending on Christ, praying, and exercising every power.
When these graces are present and abounding believers are fruitful in the knowledge of Christ, make their calling and election sure and receive abundant entrance into the everlasting kingdom, but those who lack them are spiritually blind, forgetful of cleansing, and empty in profession.
Meaning of Faith Virtue Knowledge
The faith to be built upon is true, saving and genuine faith, a gift from God that joins even the weakest soul to Christ, works by love and purifies the soul, and is shown in obedience, virtuous character and practical godliness rather than mere assent, profession or spurious self-confident criticism. It is developed by earnest effort and constant diligence through the grace of Christ, not by a single act or surface profession, but by a lifelong plan of addition in which virtue is added to faith and then knowledge and the further graces of temperance, patience, godliness, brotherly kindness and charity. This adding is the first and simplest sum in attaining Christian perfection, acquired not by vain show but by understanding in genuine simplicity what God desires, increasing trust in and reverence for God, and working it out in practical godliness through the merits of Christ. Those who so add become lights amid moral darkness and a power to bless, laborers together with God through the practical work of the gospel and the Holy Spirit upon mind and heart, while claiming belief without practicing truth leaves one spiritually blind and stunts growth.
In the verse virtue means moral excellence, moral goodness, purity and holiness of character in thought, words, actions, perception and doctrine. It is well-doing and virtuous character to be cultivated in order as part of a life of obedience, not as successive flights of feeling, built upon faith by diligent continuing effort and slothfulness and indolence steadily overcome. It is demonstrated in life by refusing to speak or practice lies, always speaking truth, and carrying out God's sentiments by mercy. Faith without such virtue is worthless, while right faith brings virtue more valuable than gold, silver or precious stones.
Virtue joined to faith also means courage and strength and firmness of character to reprove sin, execute justice and say no at the right time and place, using mild measures first and stronger ones if needed. Eli's faith lacked this firmness to preserve God's honor and keep the church and Israel pure, failing to sound a clear warning when required.
Knowledge to be added means intelligent, steadily increasing, experiential understanding of God, Jesus Christ, His redeeming work, the truth as it is in Jesus, the plan of salvation, and God's commandments and laws in His Word as guide and instructor. It is gained by reverence, prayer, searching Scripture as the textbook, practicing what is learned, walking in daily light, storing up Bible treasures to impart to others, using knowledge of Scripture to meet Satan with It is written, and looking beyond human teachers to God as Instructor. It is supreme, sound, necessary and explainable according to the light God gives, cleanses the heart, safeguards against temptation and deception including claims that God is in nature, and equips for defense of the faith and service, and only a hundredth part of privileged knowledge is yet possessed.
Knowledge of God is limited because people fail to walk in the light given each day, while growing in knowledge and acting on instruction brings strength to overcome temptation and stand firm against the enemy. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, meaning understanding and fearing to offend the Creator, remaining ignorant is no credit, ignorance is no excuse, and those with eyes that see not and ears that hear not reject probation and light. Those who do His will shall know of the doctrine, while those who refuse to be wise in the knowledge of Christ will be banished from His presence when judgment sits and the books are opened.
The order is significant: virtue must first be added to cleanse mind and heart so they are ready to receive true knowledge. After receiving the faith of the gospel the first work is to add virtuous and pure principles, and with a pure mind and heart the believer can add knowledge of God's Word and use it to defend the faith, which becomes the foundation of true education and likeness to God in character. Seeking knowledge while neglecting virtue and destroying nerve power leads to argument without piety, poor witness, self-righteousness, spiritual blindness, and a weakened confused mind left adrift. No one can gain true knowledge while pursuing a course that sacrifices virtue and destroys nerve power, for a weakened, confused, unbalanced mind goes anywhere and anyhow, unable to keep God's commandments or be an example, while learning separated from God hinders valuing divine power, purity and glory. God wants every nerve of the brain preserved in the most sacred manner and the mind kept straight and intelligent, abstaining from anything eaten or drunk for gratification, especially liquor that confuses the brain so right and wrong cannot be distinguished, moving from virtue to knowledge and from knowledge to temperance.
Continuing to add virtue to faith and to rich God-given endowments such as wisdom, with an ardent temperament guided aright, keeps life illustrious to its close like a grand noble cedar of Lebanon. Refusing it means choosing to be controlled by lust instead of partaking of the divine nature, becoming contaminated and forsaken, as shown by Solomon falling through uncontrolled passion after greatness and power.
Faith joined with virtuous character makes intellectual Christians whose mental and moral powers grow together. Divine grace develops and strengthens the intellect, and well-ordered lives, godly conduct and good works make them a light to others and lead souls to truth.
Sequence Ladder and Progress
The verse commands giving all diligence to a continual daily progressive step-by-step plan of addition, adding virtue to faith and knowledge to virtue and then continuing through temperance, patience, godliness, brotherly kindness and charity, building grace upon grace and growing upward in Christian character. This growth is not by chance or by a single action, and failing to advance leads to falling, while living by the plan multiplies grace and peace through knowing God and Jesus. Faith is the starting point to be built on, virtue and knowledge are joined to it by earnest effort, and the presence of the growing graces makes believers fruitful in the knowledge of Christ, gives assurance against falling, and points toward abundant entrance into the everlasting kingdom. Patience in the sequence depends on temperance, because unchecked appetite harms the body and leads to nervous hasty impatient speech, while self-control keeps a person fit for God's work to glorify Him in word and action. Since believers belong to God, the advance moves from patience to godliness as Christlikeness in thought, word and deed, and then to brotherly kindness shown in gentle unirritated conduct in the home.
The verse begins an eight-step eight-round ladder to be climbed round by round heavenward toward glory, virtue and conformity to the divine image. The ladder is Christ connecting earth with heaven, whose humanity reaches fallen humanity and whose divinity reaches God's throne, and it is climbed by looking to and clinging to Him and mounting toward His heights. Addition does not mean finishing one grace before beginning another, but having all the graces manifest together and abounding in character like bricks building a firm wall. Those seeking to separate evil in the carnal heart must cultivate the graces daily as a sum to prove in perfecting character, beginning with virtue added to faith and knowledge to virtue as first steps continuing to temperance, patience, godliness, brotherly kindness and charity, immediately following escape from corruption through lust and partaking of the divine nature. Faithfulness in this daily climbing brings fruitfulness rather than barrenness, keeps from falling, makes calling and election sure, and will bring conversion of hundreds and thousands as on the day of Pentecost.
Climbing is laying hold on Christ the Mediator and advancing by Christ with the eye fixed on God above the ladder, leaving past guilt behind and refusing to look down, drawn higher by multiplied grace and living connection with God until partaking of the divine nature. The ladder stands firmly upon the earth as the only safety for reaching heaven, and every round must be climbed without stopping. Climbing requires sitting at Jesus' feet to learn meekness and self-denial and taking steps upward, since earthliness blocks the way and leaves those in responsible places who neglect climbing in mist and fog and great spiritual danger. To let go of Christ or relax diligence for a moment is to cease to climb and to fall and perish, for heaven cannot be entered without constant striving by believing and working, trusting Jesus yet straining every nerve and diminishing by successive steps the distance from God in perfect obedience to all His commandments.
Sanctification and Bible holiness under the verse are progressive rather than instantaneous or completed in a moment by baptism, joining the church, or learning only first steps. The work begins only after peace with God through the atonement, then goes on to perfection and the full stature of Christ through warfare of human weakness united to divine strength, with no graduation in this life, no standstill, and no promise to one who retrogrades or stops, since received grace is lost unless one goes forward. Adding virtue to faith with knowledge and the other graces is the greatest work of this life and preparation for a future life measuring with the life of God, to be read and practiced day by day with most earnest effort and all diligence in practical godliness. Doing this work gives the grace of Christ to work out the sum, secures the eternal life insurance Christ gave His life to make possible through grace received in obedience, and enlists the whole self as a soldier of the cross under Christ as Captain until victory is gained.
Growth is gradual and cooperative, made step by step by meeting and overcoming each obstacle in turn, doing each day's work faithfully without being overwhelmed, looking to Jesus with the eye fixed on Christ, and relying on His merits and strength. Believers form right habits, practice self-denial, study from cause to effect without overloading to weakness, and overcome faults and temptation, while without His strength temptation carries toward destruction. The ladder of sanctification cannot be climbed in one effort, sanctification is not completed in a moment or maintained without continued effort, and failing to advance leads to falling and losing eternal life. Overcoming is an individual struggle against the powers of darkness in which God works in believers and supplies grace and help to struggle against evil, enabling them to be more than conquerors and to keep progressing upward toward heaven without failure.
In the sequence temperance follows knowledge and stands before patience because an intemperate person is seldom patient. Temperance means sensible control of all organs and powers in eating, drinking, dressing, labor and all things, avoiding harmful indulgence that injures brain nerve power and digestion such as alcohol, tobacco, liquor, tea, coffee, gorging, overloading the stomach and eating great variety at one meal, and instead using intelligence and reason from cause to effect to eat only what agrees with the body. Intemperance weakens mind, makes it impossible to discern spiritual things clearly and distinguish sacred from common, destroys happiness and peace, and produces a wrought-up peevish irritable sour disposition, while temperance preserves clear judgment, keeps the stomach peaceful, promotes peace among brethren, preserves health with God's blessing, and does for a person what no physician can do. After temperance and patience godliness must be added as its very outgrowth, godliness being the spirit and likeness of the character of Jesus Christ raised to His divine ideal, with virtue meaning virtuous character of purity and holiness demonstrated in life and knowledge meaning constantly increasing understanding of Scripture. Mere book learning without the Bible can never mount to the highest round, and growth also depends on the Holy Spirit while people do what is within their control.
When the successive steps are complete, perfect love is the crowning grace: supreme love for God and love for others, with love for God leading to brotherly kindness and charity. Charity as the perfect love of God is the highest step in Bible sanctification, leading to abundant entrance into God's kingdom. Adding godliness to patience means reverence for God, His character, holiness and law with awareness of His holiness, cultivated by communion with God through prayer and Scripture and regarding sin as God does. Escaping worldly corruption and understanding true godliness means putting away idols, loving God supremely and delighting to keep His commandments, and godliness leading to brotherly kindness guards against excusing sin and becoming harsh toward those who are faithful.
The ladder has lower rounds and a first round where beginners and poor discouraged souls must be met where they are and taught where to place their feet rather than expected to reach an advanced stage at once. Leading men and women to the first round is where the work of saving them begins, since standing above the lower rounds and saying come up with precise methods is of little value because souls below do not know how to climb. Barren unworked fields must be entered by beginners, and confidence in the Saviour's view inspires them so that if they begin in humility and put heart into the work they become the right persons for the time and place. This diligent climbing round by round by faithful work from teachers and students is what makes schools a power, not size of buildings or number of advanced studies taught.
Divine Power Human Cooperation
The growth commanded is made possible by divine power giving all things that pertain to life and godliness, and by exceeding great and precious promises received through knowing God and Jesus, by which believers cooperate with Christ, partake of the divine nature, and escape the corruption in the world through lust. Christ clothed His divinity with humanity, bore the curse of the law, was tempted in all points yet without yielding and overcame, so that every person may overcome in the same way. God does nothing without human cooperation, and the promises are conditional on following His directions, for He supplies divine power, promises, and the Holy Spirit while people resist temptation and follow His training. These qualities belong to a growing sequence describing the character Christians are to develop, to be added daily as part of the life in which character is perfected and made fruitful in the knowledge of Jesus Christ.
The verse sets out the human side of a definite divine plan of addition and God's plan of multiplication: as believers add grace to grace, cooperate with God, and work out salvation, God and Christ work for them multiplying grace, peace, blessings, efficiency, and the heavenly gift. He supplies power to obey every command and resist evil, and this linked divine and human agency applies to all spiritual achievements as well as to temporal matters including mechanical, agricultural, mercantile, and scientific pursuits. It belongs to God's pledge to those who keep on to know Him and share that knowledge, and living by this plan of addition while using God's grace to benefit others is met by God's multiplication of grace. Doing this work day by day gives the grace of Christ to work out the sum, makes victors at last, and secures what Christ gave His life to make possible for every soul through His grace received in obedience.
This growth comes only through dependence on Christ as the sole hope and entire dependence, coming to Him with little trials and large perplexities and telling them all to Jesus, believing He will help as strength and sympathizing Friend who is touched with the feeling of infirmities. It means carrying every trial to Jesus in prayer, grasping privileges, shunning temptation, abiding in Him under the Holy Spirit, laying hold upon the Holy Spirit, and keeping trust in Jesus as author and finisher. People must do what is within their control while depending on the Spirit, including erecting the family altar in every home morning and evening, bringing the whole family before God, recognizing dependence upon Him and the claims of His service, keeping eternal reality before every member, and confessing Christ as Leader, Captain, and divine Teacher in the home. Trusting human power and losing sight of Jesus leads to failure, for lack of the Holy Spirit comes from failing to abide in Christ and use the grace and riches of heaven freely provided.
The verse demands no halfway work, no divided service between Satan and Christ, and no mingling the common with the sacred. The whole being, heart, life, and character is to be molded after the pattern given in Christ, who took human nature and was tempted in all points without being overcome in a single point, proving that men and women can fulfill all righteousness. God gave all the facilities of heaven through a crucified and risen Saviour, and doing these things means keeping the perfect law that converts the soul and will decide the case of every person. Cherishing common fire obscures spiritual eyesight so that the sacred and the common cannot be discerned and causes the Lord to turn away with displeasure, for this growth must be worked from inward to outward as the Holy Spirit works.
Giving all diligence means acting upon light and evidence received with the service of the whole mind and heart, calling every capability into use, stretching every spiritual nerve and muscle, and bringing oneself into order by walking carefully, humbly, and trustfully before God. It means earnest united prayer for the Lord to reveal Himself, faithfully using abilities according to natural and cultivated powers, and reading and practicing the instruction with heart-searching and study that brings help, strength, and blessing. This wholehearted response produces advance movement and decided victory, as seen when souls long on the point of decision take their stand to keep the Sabbath. Partial effort, careless reliance on one's own judgment instead of God and His Word, and living by subtraction instead of addition leave ministers and believers spiritually feeble and unsteady.
Character is built by laying one grace upon another through faithful practice and good deeds, learning from Christ and growing in grace and truth into a harmonious life. Faith, patience, temperance, benevolence, courage, self-denial, devotion, obedience, and wholehearted service contribute to this harmonious life, with energy and love increasing as they are exercised and remaining steadfast despite ridicule. The faithful servants who increased the talents entrusted to them illustrate this principle, for they used what they had received and gained more, while the servant who hid his talent failed to put it to use. Character is shaped by one's choices and diligent improvement in learning where character is deficient and working to overcome those deficiencies, while Christ guides this education and God supplies grace and strength as people do right.
Virtues and graces are diligently cultivated by living in communion with God and seeking by faith and prayer to know and do His will. Christ sets before the learner every virtue and every feature of Christian excellence and adds one endowment after another to the one who holds His graces until He looks on him with delight.
Fruitfulness Assurance and Loss
When faith is built upon by adding virtue, then knowledge, and continuing through the further graces, and these qualities are present and abounding and keep increasing, believers are fruitful and neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of Christ, while doing this work daily by reading and practicing the chapter makes victors at last. Faith without corresponding works is empty, and mere profession without growth leaves the professed Christian still in sin. This growth is progressive and requires earnest continuing effort rather than being attained without diligence.
Diligently doing these things makes calling and election sure, keeps believers from ever falling, and ministers an abundant entrance into the everlasting kingdom of Christ unto eternal life. That entrance includes translation, fellowship with holy angels, an imperishable crown and the crown of life for those who persevere, with growth in grace and purification and preparation for heaven. Neglecting this plan brings spiritual blindness and falling and puts eternal life at risk.
Whoever lacks these graces is spiritually blind, unable to see afar off, forgetful of cleansing from old sins, unaware of spiritual poverty, and spiritually feeble. Mere profession without practice leaves one in sin, deceived, stunted, and revealing satanic attributes, with no words able to help until humble and contrite and yoked with Christ. Refusing to add them means failing to meet the conditions of the promise.
Complying with the conditions is the true eternal life insurance policy, better than worldly policies or secret orders such as Free Mason life insurance. It was secured by Christ giving His life to make it possible for every soul through grace received in obedience to the law of God, and taking stock in it insures life in the heavenly courts and gives title to the immortal inheritance. It enables partaking of the divine nature, resisting temptation, and escaping the corruption in the world through lust, and requires cultivating the graces of the Spirit degree after degree in practical godliness and home life, adding grace to grace day by day, climbing round by round heavenward toward glory and conformity to the divine image, and laying hold of the promises in Jesus' name.
Faithfully living the verse brings broad blessings, for God distinguishes the obedient as righteous with peace, comfort, joy, assurance, good hope, power from above, and a sure foundation. He multiplies wisdom, strength, and every good thing, makes obedience perfect through Christ's righteousness, and gives multiplied grace and peace to those who follow His Word. Believers become channels of light showing others the way, with praise put in heart and lips causing others to look on in astonishment and come to truth, with light shining from a holy temple molded after Christ, converting many, even hundreds and thousands as at Pentecost.
The verse gives comfort and encouragement to all who have obtained like precious faith. When its truths fill heart and mind they give strength to resist looking on the dark side, talking discouragement, murmuring, or separation from God. Instead believers break forth in praise, song, and thanksgiving with satisfaction of knowing themselves children of God and heirs of heaven, with the promise claimable today while mercy lingers and the way to approach God is still open.
The virtues are precious treasures making a person more precious than fine gold. The character to be formed during earthly life in Christ's likeness, in spiritual-mindedness, love for God and neighbor, and faithful conduct, built like a temple through patience, temperance, benevolence, courage, self-denial, brotherly love, courtesy, and humility, is the definite outline required for entrance into God's city. Mere profession, good deeds alone, a peaceful death, disobedience, or treating self as law does not qualify, and only loyal citizens living by the Word and practicing righteousness will enter, receive an immortal crown, and be prepared for translation and fellowship with holy angels.
Living on the plan of addition means walking humbly with God without questioning, taking no backward steps but following on to know the Lord with rejoicing at every advance. It means gaining all the time in efficiency, usefulness, and holiness as a fruit-bearing tree, strengthening every grace to resist daily temptation and evil angels' deceptions, and gaining a relish for heavenly things, since remaining ignorant is no credit. It requires daily upward progress taxing the highest powers like soldiers trained for battle rather than parade, overcoming difficulties and strong temptations to take a downward course, and refusing a half-hearted, sleepy, indifferent experience by seeking the Lord while He may be found and coming out without spot or wrinkle.
The added graces form the wedding garment of Christ's character needed to be ready for His return, with God's power enabling victory as believers keep growing. Those who live this way place themselves where truth has cleansing, refining, elevating power raising them to a tower no worldly sophistry can climb. This adding life honors the Redeemer by works that testify to the truth and keep believers to truth instead of fallacy.
Education and Mental Cultivation
The qualities to be added to faith are the highest education, a scriptural education that leads to a life in harmony with God and prepares for eternal life. This education is found in God's Word from the Master Teacher, not in instruction that rejects God's authority and commandments. Those who love God and keep His commandments receive divine help in every effort to advance, talents entrusted for His service improve by exercise, and as students work on the plan of addition by acquiring more and more, the Lord works on the plan of multiplication imparting greater efficiency and still more of the heavenly gift as it is shared. If these graces are in them and abound they will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, complete in Christ bearing the similitude of the divine nature, with free pardon and re-admission to the family of God and help in every step heavenward until changed from glory to glory, from character to character, into the image of God. Diligently cultivating virtue and knowledge through faith in God and His power makes Christians wise, skilled, correct in speech and habits and able to stand well among others, for Christ's religion elevates rather than degrades, and God provides wisdom to draw upon in growing toward the highest stage of Christian character to glorify Him.
True education consists in diligently building virtue on faith and knowledge on virtue, and learning this growth in Christian character from the Word is the highest education. It applies to children in every home and school, requiring improving abilities and talents already possessed and advancing in wisdom and favor with God and people. Slothfulness and indolence must be steadily overcome, for a virtuous character is of highest value and the quality of work matters more than its quantity in the final judgment. The Christian life is a plan of addition in which believers with diligence keep growing in faith, grace and knowledge rather than rising and falling through careless words or wrong actions, and this steady growth requiring prayer and doing God's will prepares for eternal life and for seeing the King in His beauty. It requires hearts sensitive to the Holy Spirit and practical living of Christ's life, and these qualities when present and increasing make believers fruitful in knowing Jesus Christ.
Believers who have acknowledged faith in Christ through baptism and received the pledge of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are to do this diligent progressive work of adding virtue to faith and knowledge to virtue and then continuing to add the graces that follow, and as they add, God multiplies grace and peace. Advancement is made step by step by keeping the focus on Jesus and the glory of God rather than trying to take in all difficulties and stages at once. The intellect is to be cultivated to fit for doing God's will so that time and mental powers produce fruit and overcome evil propensities, learning from God's Word and applying it rather than settling for ease or a low standard.
Schools and sanitariums are means of gaining knowledge and understanding lessons, and are to serve God's purpose rather than the pursuit of wealth, for virtue is character and believers should seek knowledge. Students have the privilege and opportunity to increase in knowledge and in grace unto perfection of Christian character. This growth is a privilege for teachers and students alike and part of God's plan for a fruitful life that glorifies Him, requiring every effort to add virtue to faith and knowledge to virtue. Knowledge means getting an education, including schooling and training children from babyhood by never speaking a cross word or scolding, because even little children know a scolding voice, and by treating them gently without letting them have everything they want, but firmly saying no to what will not do them good and repeating it until they understand it is meant.
The verse strikes the keynote of victory for youth pursuing an education. Those who know their own weakness must go to God for strength and make Christ their all in all even while studying, rather than giving their minds up almost wholly to study or they will lose all that enriches life, and its words full of instruction with truth impressively forced upon the mind by the way it is presented are to be studied abundantly and practiced as precepts. Grace is added to grace and grace and peace are multiplied as growth proceeds, and this principle applies to young people preparing themselves for useful work through earnest effort. Youth are to multiply the talents God has given them and grow in character through continued effort in adding virtue and the other qualities as they prepare for life in God's kingdom. Believers are to grow in faith in Jesus their living Head, becoming apt scholars in Christ's school and stronger, more useful Christians.
Giving all diligence to add virtue to faith and knowledge to virtue belongs to the experiences in the first chapter of Second Peter that fit men and women to become efficient workers for God, to be studied by all who offer themselves for service and directed to the work they can do. This requires consecrating body and soul, training diligently in humility rather than trusting natural ability, and growing into workers who both receive and impart truth.
The plan of addition beginning with faith is instruction for parents and children, calling them with all diligence to add virtue to faith and knowledge to virtue as part of the virtues set forth in 2 Peter 1:1-13. These qualities belong to the Christian character parents need as they educate their children and deal with them in a way that reveals the Spirit of Christ. They must be studied diligently and added to faith and practiced in spiritual experience, and doing these things gives assurance of treading securely and walking understandingly in the knowledge of Jesus Christ and never falling. This growth is to be taught from childhood through steady instruction in God's Word and practiced in family life, as children learn humility, meekness, temperance, kindness, patience, longsuffering and responsibility. Parents must climb as overcomers to lead children step by step, carefully and kindly teach them, guide their character, bring them in prayer for forgiveness when cross and impatient, teach them how to preserve health and help bear family duties, and prepare them for partaking of the divine nature, for church fellowship and baptism, for overcoming as Christ overcame, and for the immortal inheritance, with obedience to God's Word and this growth in character as conditions for the promised eternal life.
God requires diligent growth in mental, moral and physical attainments, adding virtue to virtue and strength to strength to become strong in the Lord with intelligence and ability to think and plan for positions of trust. Christ died to make this rising possible, so remaining on a low level is failure to do what God requires, and each person must now go to work with firm determination to rise, because the need is not for more men but for more manhood. Those who take the name of Christian are to honor that name by having the mind thoroughly cultivated and pursuing every aspiration and enterprise that pure religion sanctions, and obeying this instruction brings rich blessing. Faith joined with virtue and virtue with knowledge is a diligent daily work of sanctification through cooperation with the Spirit of God; it develops knowledge and capabilities and prepares believers for greater usefulness in their calling. Believers are to keep adding grace to grace as they overcome, holding fast to what they have received from God rather than treating spiritual growth as something they can take up and leave at will. This growth in knowledge of the truth is connected with loving Christ and the truth and becoming one with Christ and the Father, and belongs to attending to one's own salvation and gaining wisdom to give others right instruction. True religion elevates rather than degrades, making the strong, intelligent, mature and useful with correct speech and habits.
Christianity is a science to be mastered, deeper, broader and higher than any human science as the heavens are higher than the earth. Mastering it requires giving all diligence in disciplining, educating and training the mind for service to God in ways contrary to inborn inclination, overcoming inherited and cultivated tendencies to evil, often discarding the training and education of a lifetime to become a learner in the school of Christ. It requires educating the heart to become steadfast in God, forming habits of thought that enable resistance to temptation, learning to look upward, and understanding the principles of the Word of God in their bearing on daily life so that every act, word and thought is in accord with principles as high as heaven and compassing eternity. The graces to be added to faith are the precious graces of the Holy Spirit and they are not developed in a moment, but courage, fortitude, meekness, faith and unwavering trust in God's power to save are acquired by the experience of years, and by a life of holy endeavor and firm adherence to the right the children of God seal their destiny.
Growth in the graces of Christian character means much more than human minds comprehend and requires more Bible study and a more perfect understanding of Scripture. This growth produces a sound, solid experience of what constitutes the pillars of faith, a well-grounded foundation that storm and tempest cannot move and that makes understanding of the Scriptures certain and sure beyond danger. It gives the Christian experience and healthful, sound mind needed to discern the true voice of the Shepherd from that of a stranger amid strange elements in the church.
Home Health and Daily Conduct
The verse reaches into parents' responsibility and family life, calling children and youth to work by addition in spiritual as well as temporal things, advancing in understanding and mental growth to become skillful, thorough workers wearing Christ's yoke and lifting His burdens. Faith joined with virtue and virtue joined with knowledge forms a continuing plan of addition that puts away evil, develops godly character, and shapes the home, including how children are taught to treat others. That growth rests on everyone who professes to follow Christ, and a child who develops faith, virtue, and knowledge in service to God is being prepared to answer Christ's call to a higher life. Faithfulness in family life, patience, self-denial, and temperance build Christian character, including refusing liquor, tobacco, and other narcotics so mind and nerves retain strength and remain under control. Parents are to guide children through prayer and conversation and discipline them with tenderness and sorrow rather than uncontrolled anger, while health reform and self-control in food support children's moral and spiritual development. Teaching is to proceed step by step, putting away cheap frivolous conversation, and directing physical, mental, moral, and religious education in what is good, virtuous, righteous, and holy.
Continuing the addition through temperance means sensible, disciplined control of appetite and passions and of all organs and powers in eating, drinking, dressing, labor, and all things, offering the body as a holy acceptable sacrifice to honor God. It requires avoiding harmful indulgence that injures brain nerve power and the digestive organs, forbidding tobacco, liquor, drugged liquor, tea, coffee, gorging, overloading the stomach, eating a great variety at one meal, or eating merely for gratification. Instead reason is to be used from cause to effect to eat only what agrees with the body, since intemperance weakens mind and judgment, makes it impossible to discern spiritual things clearly or distinguish sacred from common, destroys life happiness, peace, and a favorable impression of truth, and produces a wrought-up, peevish, irritable disposition. Temperance preserves clear judgment, health with God's blessing, peace among brethren, and sacred influence, keeping the stomach peaceful and doing for a person what no physician can do. Growth in this character also depends on the Holy Spirit, with people doing what is within their control while depending on the Spirit, and calls for complete diligence rather than partial effort or careless reliance on one's own judgment.
Knowledge added to virtue means intelligent understanding of the evil of intemperance, so believers of all ages put whole power against it, sign the temperance pledge when presented, encourage reform workers, help others, and never remain indifferent to souls. That work includes laboring to close liquor saloons in the cities that sell drugged liquor making men mad and are sustained by men in judicial positions, and carefully self-guarding in eating and drinking injurious nonintoxicants such as tea and coffee against a keen enemy determined to win.
Temperance stands in order before patience because an intemperate person is seldom patient, since intemperate appetite and stimulating substances excite the nerves and make patience impossible. Healthful unstimulating food and regulated habits give calm nerves and mental clearness to discern good from evil, making patience possible as calm, unexcited endurance. Patience endures trials, provocations, annoyances, reproach, disappointment, losses, crosses, slander, and hurt feelings without murmur, complaint, hasty words, or angry retaliation, ruling the spirit, slow to anger and slow to speak, giving soft answers, forgetting slights, leaving reputation with God, rising above worldly customs with uncomplaining dignity, and counting it joy to endure for Christ. It is a heavenly attribute learned from Christ, giving moral grandeur greater than taking a city, and it must have its perfect work to make a person perfect and entire, wanting nothing.
Patience depends on temperance because unchecked appetite harms the body and leads to nervous, hasty, impatient speech, while self-control keeps a person fit for God's work. Since believers belong to God their words and actions are to glorify Him, with patience leading on to godliness expressed by being Christlike in thought, word, and deed, and then to brotherly kindness shown through gentle, unirritated conduct in the home. These qualities are cultivated step by step as grace and peace are multiplied, requiring cultivation of the graces of the Spirit, right use of speech to bless and strengthen, crucifying of self, and strong love for Christ and for one another. Living this way means letting heaven's light guide the heart, yielding wrong dispositions and habits, correcting mistakes, guarding words to avoid irritation and strife, cutting out selfishness, lifting the work higher, and waking from inaction. Those who work out this addition in practical genuine godliness through Christ's merits become lights amid moral darkness, receive power to resist Satan, and obtain peace through genuine simplicity.
The growth belongs to continuing growth in grace and knowledge under the Holy Spirit from faith upward, requiring daily diligence, constant exercise of faith, cooperation with God's power, keeping His commandments, and faithfully performing Christian duties. Unkindness and harshness show failure to discern Christ's love and purity. Truth received should elevate taste, sanctify judgment, purify the church, develop holy character, comely manners, and guileless speech, separate from the world without coarseness, and fit for translation and association with angels.
The call to cultivate the Christian graces applies to choosing plain dress, avoiding useless ornament and display, and not fostering love of dress in children, with each person responsible to do the work entrusted by God and to answer for it before Him. Reaching brotherly kindness requires humility and freedom from self-righteousness reflecting sympathy with Christ, and then believers can value the work of Christian missions. The light that ought to shine from believers in good works is patience, long-suffering, gentleness, meekness, brotherly kindness, love, and godliness, and when bodily infirmity keeps God's people from committed work there is great loss to the church and that light is shut away from the world.
Those professing to be the light of the world must depart from all iniquity and be constantly developing in character, true virtue, and godliness, living as in God's sight. Mind and heart are to be thoroughly imbued with Christ's spirit and solemnized by the sacred message, so every thought, action, and motive is above the earthly and sensual, happiness is found not in forbidden selfish gratification but in Jesus, and characters are formed that Christ will not be ashamed to call brethren, each receiving according to deeds done in the body. This steady religious growth is expressed in truthful words and conduct with genuine piety and firm principle, grounded in knowledge of truth and reasons for faith learned by searching Scripture, lest neglect leave a person vulnerable to false theories.
The verse states principles of heaven for every officer, guardian, and shepherd standing in lot and place, to be written and hung in the chambers of the mind, adding moral goodness to faith, understanding to moral goodness, and continuing through self-control, patience, godliness, brotherly kindness, and love. Its chapter is especially meant for the church as a people and the little company keeping the Sabbath to walk in the royal path, to be read, studied, and obeyed in letter and spirit with wholehearted commitment, watchfulness, and prayer. Doing this addition lays aside distrust of brethren because distrust brings bondage, putting men and women under Christ's control and uniting His people, showing on Christ's side even in business transactions and marking the difference between God's kingdom and the world's principles. It requires laboring together steadfastly in the harvest field as sowers and reapers, steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the Lord's work.
The verse is to be studied verse by verse as a caution calling to seek the Lord and walk in humility in relation to sanitarium work, requiring daily seeking of God, putting away superiority, letting truth take root, and practicing Christlike virtues to become vessels of honor. Sanitarium workers are required to stand on higher ground and climb higher away from a low standard, cultivating kindness and tenderness of heart with strong determination and faith in Christ and encouraging the Spirit's presence in heart, mind, and speech. This experience makes impressions for good on patients and unbelievers that are carried away, as heaven's light shines into hearts and minds for lasting influence, which the unaided human agent cannot make but Christ will work with those who work with Him. Applied to God's institutions and medical preparation, the same diligence cultivates intellect and practical discernment without neglecting qualification, building character step by step through work, prayer, belief, and continued learning, with Jesus helping as connection with God expands the soul and deepens responsibility to use abilities wisely.
The verse calls for reaching a high standard in all habits by adding lacking virtues to attainments already gained, gaining knowledge that equips for cooperating with God in serving others after Christ's example and partaking of the divine nature. The Christian graces adorn life through Christ's grace, exchanging deformity for practical godliness, and this growth calls believers to help fellow workers progress rather than disparage them. Seeking first the kingdom of God and His righteousness means doing these principles as first work and foundation with heart, mind, soul, and strength, affecting the entire character. Following them while seeking Christ's righteousness secures life, makes a person one with the Saviour, molds character after Christ's likeness into a holy temple for the Lord, and causes light to shine to church and world, offering comfort by calling believers to come to the Lord for instruction, learn His will, and then do it faithfully.
Mission Service and Witness
Faithfully practicing the addition of virtue to faith and knowledge to virtue, and continuing daily through temperance, patience, godliness, brotherly kindness and love, perfects character, brings fruitfulness in the knowledge of Christ, escapes corruption through lust, and brings the conversion of many, even hundreds and thousands as on the day of Pentecost. Giving all diligence to keep adding grace to grace with no standstill is the plan for victory and climbing round by round heavenward toward glory, virtue and conformity to the divine image, and as faith thus adds, grace and peace are multiplied. Those who do this become diligent students in Christ's school and active laborers in His vineyard, neither barren nor unfruitful, rooted and grounded in truth, living witnesses and workers together with God in restoring His image in man, to whom the transgressed law is no longer a yoke of bondage but the law of liberty. The knowledge added is to guide intelligent efforts to help others, including understanding the harms of intemperance and applying temperance against liquor and other harmful drinks such as tea and coffee. This growth is to shape workers' words and actions through the Spirit's sanctifying influence, with the graces that follow making them fruitful in knowing Christ.
The growth includes earnest commitment to share the truths of the faith, win others to them, and become firmly established in faith by diligent addition of grace to grace. It calls for continual self-denial and sacrifice in working out salvation, as shown by those carrying the message to every nation and language, and for knowing Jesus through experience and taking His life as the pattern, even as He from childhood and at twelve began to show understanding of His work and what lay before Him. Knowledge of Christ is learned through prayer, searching Scripture and practicing His life of self-denial and self-sacrifice, and every believer has a ministry as a soldier of Christ using the intelligence, grace and ability He supplies. Because the world is fast ripening for the close of its history, there is great and earnest work to do, and those truly serving the Lord will be a holy sanctified people communicating light of truth to all around them in their households and outside them, to believers and unbelievers alike, faithfully cultivating spiritual life and using instruction and grace received to help others.
For ministers and those who instruct others in the way to life, adding virtue and knowledge to faith means learning Scripture and the evidences and reasons for faith before instructing others, so they can teach intelligently and faithfully and explain the hope within them. Ministers who fail to keep adding become spiritually feeble and ineffective, while those who grow become skillful workers in sacred service. Living by this deliberate plan includes overcoming impatience and showing gentleness, kindness, tenderness, love and courtesy, which are essential in the conduct of Christ's ministers.
Practical godliness required is the law and the gospel going hand in hand as a perfect whole, neither complete without the other. It sets forth God's great moral standard of righteousness in His holy unchangeable law together with Christ as substitute and surety whose blood cleanses the transgressor and imputes righteousness to believers. The law convicts of sin and draws to Christ but has no saving power to pardon, and the gospel without the law is inefficient and powerless, so true faith returns to allegiance to God's holy law through repentance toward God and faith toward the Lord Jesus Christ, producing unfeigned love and faith.
The example for accomplishing the adding is Christ laying off His royal robe and kingly crown, coming as a little child, taking the liabilities of human nature and concealing divinity so people could follow His steps. His childhood and youth at His father's carpenter bench show how it is done, for He would not be defective even in handling tools, was perfect as a workman as in character, carried cheerfulness and tact into labor, never let worldly care leave Him no time or thought for heaven, often expressed gladness by singing psalms and heavenly songs, was faithful in all He did, and learned lessons and understood and did His duty, and the same faithfulness in learning lessons and doing duty is required. This work belongs to those who have acknowledged faith through baptism and received the pledge of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, is to begin at once and continue through the further graces, and as wickedness increases righteousness should increase.
Living on the plan of addition lets the Lord work for the glory of His name and advancement of His cause, and every soul is called to grow in grace and knowledge of truth by living on it in consecration and humble trust while seeking to know and do religious duty. Working the plan means acting one's part in the fear of God, reverencing Him, keeping the soul in His love and the Lord ever before the mind, making no provision for uniting even for a moment with Satan to forward his schemes, refusing his service and not allowing him to divert the mind from God's work, for he knows human weakness and just what inducements lead astray.
Proving the Lord by working on the plan of addition, adding grace to grace and becoming established in the most holy faith, prepares and obligates believers to reach out for souls ignorant of truth to convince, help and bless them so they do not lose the crown of life. Diligence to make calling and election sure means earnest consecrated zeal to win many to present truth, presenting the most sacred truths ever committed to mortals and carrying them with prayer and diligence to inhabitants of cities in strong city work. The adding shows forth God's glory as revealed through Jesus Christ and magnifies His power, requiring an account for privileges and making the most of them, not in silence or lifeless testimony but with power springing into heart and soul and then speaking with life and power to lift minds to eternal interests. This growth accompanies making calling and election sure and seeking to win others, and by living consistently believers show they are overcoming through the blood of the Lamb and the word of testimony.
Growth is in the qualities of Christ's character by partaking of the divine nature, and understanding the word of truth helps understand His character. This same growth binds believers together in loving fellowship and dependence on one another.