August 17, 2009

Partakers of the Divine Nature - 2 Peter 1:2-4

Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.

In our world of seemingly endless options, we sometimes overlook the reality that scripture only gives us two. Either we are "partakers of the divine nature," or we are in bondage to the "corruption that is in the world through lust."

The first option is ours by choice. We "partake" of God's nature as one might choose to partake of good food. The Greek word is actually koinonos, which some of you will recognize as being related to koinonia, or shared companionship. We gain this nature of God by deliberately associating (communing) with Him. He is always willing, but we must also consciously determine to be part of this supernatural community. It is never forced upon us. Notice how Peter phrases it: "that...you may be partakers."

Option two is very, very different. It is something that must be escaped. It holds us captive against our will. It is described as corruption, as something that is in the world, and as something that is produced by lust. The word translated "corruption" is a powerful word. It refers to things which destroy and which will themselves be destroyed. This is our destiny apart from the mercy of God.

The word I want to focus on, however, is the word "lust," or epithumeo. It literally means directing our passions toward a desired object. While we normally associate this with sexual desire, it actually can apply to anything we deeply long for. In most of the scriptures that use epithumeo it is translated "lust" or occasionally "desire." However, in the King James Version you will sometimes find instead the old-fashioned word "concupiscence."

Picture if you will a long line, a continuum. At one end of the line is concupiscence. At the other end of the line is agape, which is the word that best describes God's nature. Each of us lives somewhere on that line, and we are affected by both forces. Even before we are saved we see the mercies of God, in the natural world and in the people around us. There is even an echo of God's nature within us, which enables at least some of us to be kind and good.

But no matter where we are on that line, until the point of our salvation we are moving toward the concupiscence end. Only by God's redeeming grace can we be turned around and headed toward agape. The agenda of our life then becomes this steady movement toward heaven. It happens through the moment-by-moment decisions to keep our eyes and minds (and even our bodies) turned in the right direction.

This is what Peter is discussing in his second epistle. He says we who are believers have everything we need to keep ourselves aligned with God's nature, specifically the power, the knowledge, and the "exceedingly great and precious promises." God also continually "calls" us, not through loud demands, but through the beauty of His glory and virtue. Peter goes on (in verses 5 and 6) to identify the steps we must take to make this calling a reality in our lives: faith, virtue, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, brotherly kindness, and love.

Because it is a process that obviously requires great commitment, it would be helpful to understand more about this line we're on. I'm going to borrow two natural images to describe our options. For the concupiscence end, I picture a black hole. This is a strange component of our universe that sucks everything into itself, even light. It is always consuming and is never satisfied.

There is a description in Habakkuk 2:5 of a man who lives in concupiscence. "Indeed, because he transgresses by wine, he is a proud man, and he does not stay at home. Because he enlarges his desire as hell, and he is like death, and cannot be satisfied, he gathers to himself all nations and heaps up for himself all peoples." This man craves wine, women other than his wife, and endless power...but despite all that he "gathers to himself," his hungers are never abated.

The agape end of the line can be represented by the sun. Out of its own resources it endlessly pours light and warmth into the universe around it. From this light and warmth there springs up new life which is blessed and sustained by the energies it receives, and which in turn passes good things on to others.

There are many wonderful descriptions of the agape life in the New Testament. I've chosen this one (Romans 12:9-13) because it has so many practical aspects. "Let love (agape) be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil. Cling to what is good. Be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love, in honor giving preference to one another; not lagging in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord; rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing steadfastly in prayer; distributing to the needs of the saints, given to hospitality."

I doubt there is anything that can be more strongly contrasted than concupiscence and agape. But here is the crux of the matter: we can be facing in only one direction on our line. We are either receiving the warmth of God's love, or we are being drawn into the blackness of death. If, after our rebirth (which effectively turned us heavenward for the first time), hell no longer holds power over us, then why would Peter and the other writers of scripture be so concerned that we "give all diligence" to becoming like God?

I think the key comes down to our epithumeo (desires). You see, while most of the time this word is used in a negative context, there are several scriptures that speak of desires which are godly. For instance, Jesus tells His disciples (in Matthew 13:17) that "...many prophets and righteous men desired (epithumeo) to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it." In Philippians 1:22 Paul writes that he has a strong epithumeo to "depart [from this life] and be with Christ."

Some religions have proposed that the path to holiness is found through renouncing all desire. Christianity instead promotes increased desire...but only for God Himself. The more we look toward Jesus, and the more we come to know Him deep in our innermost beings, the more our desire for Him will replace every other epithumeo we might have. As Peter expressed it, "Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us."

Concupiscence tempts us to be self-seeking and self-exalting, and then demolishes the self in its all-consuming corruption. Agape requires absolute selflessness, but even as we are dying to ourselves we are mysteriously raised to join into the koinonia of Christ, a fellowship that frees us to become more significantly individual than anything that can be found "in the world."