Partakers of the Divine Nature #2: Called to Glory and Virtue

According as His divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness through the knowledge of Him that hath called us unto glory and virtue.

High Voltage

There are warnings near electrical junction-boxes because there is danger. There is danger because the presence of high-voltage electricity is easily capable of killing the human organism. Power can kill. And power can heal. Satan is the "prince of the power of the air" (Ephesians 2:2). He is called Apollyon, the destroyer (Revelation 9:1). He has pitted himself against the One who originally gave him life. Before he perverted himself and let strange lusts and desires come to control him—the mystery of iniquity—he was created perfect, without any taint of sin. He himself corrupted himself, and led the universe into the sin conflict. We were born onto that battlefield.

We sprout up in a dangerous war-zone, caught between the spiritual weakness we are born with, and the spiritual power of our foe. We are all-needing, and so God has intervened to answer all our pleading prayers for His help.

There's something here that you can't see in your translation. In the Greek, there are certain positions of emphasis within a textual passage, usually the first and the last positions. In the Greek this text flows like this: "to all us His divine power to life and goodness has been given." That's the rough translation. The first point there is that to "all of us" God has given overcoming power.

You don't start a long trip in your car with a half gallon of gasoline. The engine needs its fuel; it needs to be able to apply power to the drive-train. Sometimes we've made claims to ourselves or even to God, that we just didn't have what it takes to be a Christian. Now that is right as far as it goes. We don't have what it takes. We don't have what we need to live God's way. We're born without it. Spawned with an empty gas tank, born apart from high voltage spiritual electricity, maybe we've felt we had excuse to live below the demands of the gospel.

But "to all us" His divine power has been given. That's an emphasized point. Neither you nor I have been somehow forgotten or left out of the dispersal of power. We're all on the list. We all have a pass-card to heaven's strength.

His Divine Power

And let's consider that strength. The Word is not speaking merely of God's authority, but in particular here of His strength. Notice that it's His strength that is made available "to all us." We are not left to fight the spiritual battles in our own strength. But in His divine power."

This is strength from beyond. A gift of power. Let us make no mistake, it is a gift, unearned, unsolicited, yet provided by a God of love. A gift made available to us only through our Savior who has "ascended on high" and given us grace "to the measure of the gift of Christ" (Ephesians 4:7-8). And how much would that be?

The measure of the gift of Christ is quite the measure. Who can imagine its depth? Its height? What could match the measure of that gift? We hardly dare to imagine. Yet the Word of God says that to you and to I have been given grace to that measure. Silver and gold we may not have. But grace, in the coin of God's divine power, has been granted us. Jesus has ascended on high and given gifts unto men. We live like paupers but our purse has been lined with gold. We don't tap the treasure-trove though. We are so much more by habit inclined to keep living in the compromises we've made with sin. But biblically, our privilege is nothing less than to live "according as His divine power hath given unto us!"

All Things that Pertain to Life and Godliness

And what have we been given? "all Things that Pertain to Life and Godliness." All that we need in our fallen state, for life and godliness. That's an interesting pair of words. They go together: life and godliness. Their contrast would be death and ungodliness. Life without godliness is a cheap substitute compared to what we are designed for. If the Apollo astronauts had stopped short of going to the moon, just done one earth-orbit and then splashed-down, they'd have wasted a vast portion of their potential. Their machinery was designed to go to the moon, and that's where they went.

We were designed for life and godliness. The real thing. To truly live. The demons want to sale you a garish substitute. But God wants to give you the real thing. He's your Father. You're His child. He knows just how high you can go. He knows just exactly what you need to get there. He's doing what it takes. Are we?

What you or I might think we need for life or for godliness might be different than what God thinks we need. A prayer over our meal, to show up on Sabbath at church looking nice, to be friendly to people we really can't stand and don't care to put up with, perhaps to read from the Bible (once in awhile)—these things may seem very spiritual to us. Is God's standard higher?

Instead of a prayer over our meal, could a person striving for godliness want to be thankful all day for God's provision? When we come to church, would we arrive with delight in the worship of our God and Savior uppermost in our mind, in attendance to be a blessing rather than in search for one? Instead of outward silence and inward scorn, would we pray for outward tact and inward appreciation? "God, you know my heart. I have so much trouble getting along with ____. I don't even want to like ____. Please put your love into my heart for ____." And then there's the Bible. How would the Bible be in the mind of a person striving for godliness?

The Bible provides the background for everything that pertains to life and godliness. It contains God's command-codes for life, His wall-paper for the brain, His 3-D glasses through which to view the world. We should readily admit that our Christianity shapes our life, even the way we think. Someone might say, "What? Admit being biased?" And I say yes, of course. Everyone lives life through someone's glasses. Satan has his sunglasses and rose-colored glasses in various shades spread all around. All of His people are wearing them. God's people should be wearing God's specs. How else will they fulfil their calling to glory and virtue? How else will they see into the unseen, the infra-red band? Unless they wear contacts from heaven, how will they focus clearly on running with patience the race that is set before them (Hebrews 12:1)?

"All things" is everything we need. For life and godliness. Every tool. Every necessity. For the beauty that He has set before us. What has He provided uniquely for you? You might be surprised.

Our Calling to Glory and Virtue

To what have we been called? I mean our whole life. We are called to glory and virtue. Called to live "soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world" (Titus 2:12). Are we doing it? Have we even imagined what it means?

We don't know what a hero is.

That's right. We don't. For years we've seen tales bristling with fictionalized characters and special effects. Emotion-evoking music swells, adrenalin rate goes up, our pulse pounds. But in the end the credits role. It was just a celluloid production, a screen-writer's castle in the sky; it wasn't real. Yet we've been led to think that these are what heroes are: ordinary or extraordinary people who through a combination of luck, cleverness, and some form (fill-in-the-blank) of violence, get the job done.

On their own.

Hah.

The human race, left to itself, doesn't contain one hero, not one single one! From Adam on down, "all we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one his own way; and the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all" (Isaiah 53:6). There is only one hero. Jesus. He has intervened. He knows what is in humankind by direct experience. He became as human as we are. "The Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all." He maintained His connection with the Father. None else has. Paul points out how he lives in Romans 8:2: "For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death." Jesus condemned sin in the flesh. Our human flesh. He lived "the law of the Spirit of life." And that law is that when we let the Spirit live in us, we are made free from the law of sin and death.

When the Holy Spirit is permitted to be present, called upon for help, and enlisted in a battle with sin, we are filled with spiritual power from the heavenly Source. Our nature and the Spirit of God are always in conflict one with another. As we noted last Sabbath, conflict is inevitable. The only question about conflict, is whether we are willing to violate the demands of our conscience or the demands of our flesh. "For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things ye would" (Galatians 5:17). In Romans, Paul points out the same issue, serving the law of God with the mind or law of sin with his flesh. (Romans 7:25). The trial of self-denial can be experienced for a season, or the pleasures of sin for a season. The blessedness of right living can be experienced now for a moment, and an unspeakable blessing in itself, the answer of a clear conscience toward God and man, and then later through eternity. The choice hardly seems to involve higher math.

There will be conflict. The only question is whether we will enlist our Father on our side in it, or sink inevitably into sin and death.

We've been called as a people to glory and virtue. Is glory or virtue ever available under the reign of sin in a life? Pleasure, yes, the Bible admits that there is a fleeting pleasure in sin (Hebrews 11:25). But never does glory or virtue enter in to sin. All sin can manage is an inglorious wickedness and an unvirtuous evil.

People forget that we've been called to live in glory and virtue (rejoicing in Christ's glory, and producing the fruit of Christ-empowered virtue). None of this glory or virtue is self-generated, or saves us or adds to a private fund of righteousness. There isn't any.

But how quickly we think that to live that way must be for someone else who's at least "got it in them." Friend, none of us have it in us. It is only there as we continue to purposefully maintain our link with the Lord Jesus. Let there be no mistake. We are called, without question, to a certain way of living. We are empowered to live that way. Through no goodness of our own, we are granted the possibility of knowing all of the blessings of righteousness. How we need to embrace our opportunities!

Exercising faith is not overly technical. We pray to the Father through Jesus. by faith we believe in His power to save. As we trust, Jesus in the heavenly sanctuary communicates the need to the Father, the switch is thrown, the power transmitted, we receive and obey through the enlivened will. Is it because we are afraid that our praying plea for help will be answered that we don't follow through? Perhaps we believe too well. Then we need to ask God to give us a desire for that victory over our desire to indulge in evil.

Conclusion

We're called to live this way. We're empowered to live this way. We're privileged to live this way. Then why don't we? We are called up into the mount with God. We can live above the world, above the cloying pull of our naturally selfish nature and earthliness. We can live in a way that is pleasing to God and an infinite blessing to ourselves. We'll gain a knowledge of God no sooner than we seek for it on God's terms. Let's take our journey there in stronger ferver, more gusto, and more vigor. Taste the reality now.