2 Peter 1:8. For these things subsisting for you and multiplying. The A. V. throws this into the hypothetical form ‘if these things,' etc. The writer rather speaks of the graces as already in the readers, and thus gives both greater courtesy and greater force to his recommendation. The suggestive courtesy of the statement appears also in the phrase which the A. V. renders ‘ be in you,' and the R. V. ‘are yours,' but which means rather ‘subsisting for you.' The word selected there is not the simple verb ‘to be,' but another which implies not only existence but continuous existence, and looks at the possession of graces as a thing characterizing the readers, not merely now, but in their original spiritual condition. It is the phrase which is used, e.g., in Philippians 2:6 of Christ as ‘ being in the form of God;' in Acts 7:53, of Stephen ‘ being full of the Holy Ghost;' in 1 Corinthians 13:3, of ‘all my goods; ' in Matthew 19:21, ‘sell all that thou hast.' In these and similar cases, it implies rightful, settled possession, and looks back from the present moment to the antecedent condition of the subjects. The A. V. also misses the point of the other participle, the idea of which is not that of abounding, but rather that of increasing or multiplying (cf. Romans 5:20; Romans 6:1; 2 Thessalonians 1:3). What is taken for granted, therefore, is not that these graces are in these believers in profusion, or in larger measure than in others, but that, being in them, they are steadily growing and expanding, and exhibiting all the evidence of vitality.

make you not idle nor yet unfruitful. The ‘make' is here expressed by a term which means to establish or constitute. The two adjectives are dealt with by the A. V. as if they meant the same thing. There is a clear distinction, however, between them. The latter means ‘unfruitful.' The former, however, means not ‘barren' but (as Cranmer, Tyndale, and the Genevan render it) ‘idle.' It is applied, e.g., to the ‘ idle word' (Matthew 12:36); to the useless idlers in the marketplace (Matthew 20:3; Matthew 20:6, a parable which may have been in Peter's mind when he penned the passage); to the younger widows who are described as ‘ idle, wandering about from house to house' (1 Timothy 5:13). The idea, therefore, is that where these graces are one's permanent inward property, at his command, and growing from strength to strength like things that live, they put him in a position, or create in him a constitution, under which it cannot be that he shall prove himself either a useless trifler doing no honest work, or an unprofitable servant effecting what is of no worth even when he gives himself to action.

unto the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. The A. V. is again astray in rendering ‘ in the knowledge,' etc. This ‘knowledge' (again with the intense sense of full, mature knowledge, as in 2 Peter 1:2-3) is represented not as the thing in which they are to be ‘not idle nor yet unfruitful,' but as that with a view to which all else is enjoined, the goal toward which all else is meant to carry us. The sevenfold symmetry of the spiritual character, and the furnishing forth of all these varied graces, are recommended not as ends to themselves, but as means toward the higher end of an ever enlarging, and at last perfect, knowledge of Christ Himself. The fact that these graces minister to so blessed a result is one great reason why we should set ourselves to cultivate them with ‘all diligence.' They require for their cultivation both the Divine endowment of ‘all things serviceable to life and godliness,' and sedulous application on our side. But the object which is set before us is worth all the expenditure, both human and Divine. The dependence of knowledge upon holiness, or of vision upon purity, which is stated in the most absolute form in such passages as Matthew 5:8; Hebrews 12:14, and in relation to practical obedience to God's will in John 7:17, is presented here in connection specially with the need of completeness in the Christian character and fruitful ness in the Christian life. So, in Colossians 1:10, Paul speaks of being ‘ fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God.'

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Old Testament