For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, - 2 Peter 1:5 (ESV)
This post marks the beginning of a new series on the seven essential qualities that Peter lists in 2 Peter 1:5-7. This passage, in its context, has been of immense usefulness to me in understanding what sort of business I ought to be about in my daily life. And I continue to be guided by it.
From the human perspective, the Christian life begins with faith. This is where living for God begins. Peter starts with faith here because it is the sine qua non of every other aspect of the Christian life.
What is faith? Faith is, as Hebrews 11:1 tells us, "assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." Faith is belief. Faith is something we possess in the sense that we say we have it. In the context of 2 Peter, he refers to "very great and precious promises" (2 Peter 1:4). God has offered great and precious promises, and those who have faith are those who believe them.
Peter recognizes here that everything starts with faith. Virtue cannot be the starting point. We do not start with godliness. We cannot begin with love. Why is this? It is because we cannot have or produce anything of these things apart from faith. Faith is the soil in which the fruits of the Christian life take root and grow. Where there is no soil, there can be no growth. This makes sense at a practical level, since if we do not believe the promises then we will not live in the direction to which they point us.
Notice that even in this short sentence from 2 Peter, faith is not intended to be the endpoint. Faith is not the destination. Faith is the entrance to the journey. And faith also is each cobblestone that supports us as we live life to God rather than for ourselves.
Some people seem to think that once they have faith there is nothing else to be done. I have heard the sentiment expressed that a person only needs faith, and the rest of their life is set. That is true in a sense. If we mean that a person does not need to add anything to their faith for salvation, that is true. But if we mean that faith is to make up the substance of a person's life so that all that is expected of believers is to believe in the Lord to be saved and nothing else, that is not true. Faith does not itself constitute our lives in Christ. Faith is the ground and necessary starting point for our lives, which ought to lead to many more things besides.
I used to think that once a Christian was saved, the main part of the work was done. Now I understand that it has only just begun. I can no longer conceive of coasting along spiritually as I used to. There is too much work to be done. I have a list of things to change and grow in that is longer than my arm, and those are just the things I am aware of. Who knows what the Spirit sees in me that desperately needs changing? Spiritual boredom is now an impossibility. It is far more a question of depending on the Spirit for the strength to keep going rather than looking for things to do.
Why is this so? It is because Peter makes clear here that the presence of faith does not signal the completion of the work but its start. Peter makes clear that faith is the essential starting point for our life in Christ and our relationship to God. But faith is only the starting point. By faith, we have peace with God because our sins are forgiven and Christ's righteousness is credited to us. By faith, we enter into a relationship with God that we could not otherwise have. By faith, we have access to God and the hope of eternal life with him.
Well, some might say, faith sounds pretty good. If faith does so much, what else is there to do?
Lots.
The reason is that faith brings us to the point of having promises in which to hope. Faith is the linking point between us and God. We must believe God before we can live for him. But believing in God does not constitute living for him. Believing in God is no substitute for the good works to which God has called us (Eph. 2:10). Faith is not itself the good works to which we are called. Faith is a prerequisite to those works.
Is there more to the Christian life than the faith with which it starts? Yes. The Christian life begins with belief in Christ Jesus for the forgiveness of sins and eternal life with God, but it continues with repentance. And while we typically think of repentance in terms of the things we ought to stop doing, the other side of the coin is to consider what we ought to be doing instead. Interestingly, it seems typical for professing believers to live as though they can start with faith and never progress further.
And this jives with what are some common issues in life today. Our generation faces some complexities that are greater than those of previous ones. Life is faster than it has ever been. There are more ways to spend our time than ever before. There are more ways to escape the problems of real life than ever before. There is more potential power, money, fame, and pleasure available to us than to any previous generation. And with greater potential to ur benefit comes greater danger that it will lead to our detriment. What to focus on in a world with so many options? It is easier to live perpetually confused than ever before. And many people settle for escaping. Don't escape. Engage.
We must have faith at the core. These are all supplements to faith, not replacements for it. If we go through life with all the confidence and relative success in the world, but we have not faith in Christ, we have hope in this life only, and that will lead sooner or later to despair, because there is no other hope to be found in this world than in Christ.