We all need to realize that God is with His divine nature for our enjoyment. Beef can never be your enjoyment unless you enjoy the nature of the beef. When you enjoy fish, you enjoy the nature of fish. This is why Peter according to his own experience tells us that we partake of the divine nature. To say that we merely partake of God is too general, but to say that we partake of the divine nature is particular.
Peter, who was an unlearned fisherman from Galilee, wrote this according to his experience. Even though he was unlearned, Peter could write such a marvelous Epistle which included many wonderful divine points. He said that we all have been allotted like precious faith and that the divine power has granted us all things related to life and godliness. Based upon this, Peter tells us that God has given us precious and exceedingly great promises that we might become the partakers of the divine nature. Furthermore, he tells us that in our allotted faith we have to develop virtue, in virtue knowledge, in knowledge self-control, in self-control endurance, in endurance godliness, in godliness brotherly love, and in brotherly love, love (2 Pet. 1:1, 5-7). What Peter’s writing implies is much higher, even a thousand times higher than the highest philosophy. Peter wrote this because he experienced this. When he was writing, undoubtedly, the Spirit was within him giving him the utterance and the proper expressions.
According to his experience, Peter told us that God’s divine power has imparted to the believers all things related to life (2 Pet. 1:3a). Furthermore, he told us that God has given to the believers precious and exceedingly great promises that the believers might become partakers and enjoyers of the divine nature through its development (2 Pet. 1:4-7). First, God by His divine power has imparted into us all the things pertaining to life and godliness. Second, based upon this He gave us His promises. The first part of 2 Peter 1:4 says, “Through which He has granted to us precious and exceedingly great promises.” “Which” refers to glory and virtue in verse 3. Through and on the basis of the Lord’s glory and virtue by and to which we have been called, He has given us His precious and exceedingly great promises, such as in Matthew 28:20; John 6:57; 7:38-39; 10:28-29; 14:19-20, 23; 15:5; and 16:13-15. All these are being carried out in His believers by His life-power, as the excellent virtue, unto His glory.
Based upon what He has imparted into us, God gives us His promises. By these promises we can be partakers of the divine nature. This means we can enjoy and know God in what He is, in Spirit, in love, and in light. Peter goes on according to his experience to tell us that there is a process of development. We all have the allotted faith and from this faith we have to develop the virtues.
Faith is the substantiation of the substance of the truth (Heb. 11:1), which is the reality of the contents of God’s New Testament economy. The contents of God’s New Testament economy are composed of the “all things which relate to life and godliness” (2 Pet. 1:3), that is, the Triune God dispensing Himself into us as life within and godliness without (see points 1, 2, 5, and the last paragraph of note 11 in 1 Tim. 1— Recovery Version). The like precious faith allotted to us by God through the word of God’s New Testament economy and the Spirit, responds to the reality of such contents and ushers us into the reality, making its substance the very element of our Christian life and experience. Such a faith is allotted to all the believers in Christ as their portion, which is equally precious to all who have received it. As such a portion from God, this faith is objective to us in the divine truth. But it brings all the contents of its substantiation into us, thus making them all with itself (faith) subjective to us in our experience. It is like the scenery (truth) and the seeing (faith) being objective to the camera (us). But when the light (the Spirit) brings the scenery to the film (our spirit) within the camera, both the seeing and the scenery become subjective to it.
This allotted faith is the substantiation, the response, of the divine seed, the Triune God dispensed into us, which has been sown into our being, referred to in 1 John 3:9. We have to cooperate with this seed in order for it to have some development. In our faith, in the substantiation of the divine seed, virtue needs to be supplied and developed. Virtue denotes the energy of the divine life issuing in vigorous action to overcome all obstacles and to carry out all excellent attributes. This virtue with all things relating to life has been given to us by the divine power, but it needs to be developed on the way to glory. When you contact the Lord, you have the sensation that something within you is energizing, stirring up, and rising up. This is the virtue, the life energy. Then in this life energy there is more development and we begin to know the Lord much more, in knowledge.
Furthermore, in this knowledge, just by contacting the Lord, there is a realization that you need to restrict yourself. You begin to realize that you are too wild, too free, especially in the passions, desires, lusts, and in the self. This restricting of yourself is self-control. This is a kind of temperance. Then you develop further from self-control to endurance. Self-control is to restrict yourself and endurance is to bear with others and with circumstances. Without contacting the Lord, you would be so wild and so free in doing things and you would not endure anything or anybody. You may even feel that the entire earth is your world and your empire, and you might get angry with everybody. However, when you stay with the Lord in fellowship the divine nature within you develops and you restrict yourself, tolerate others, and endure any kind of environment.
Then in endurance godliness is developed. As the divine nature develops within you, you will spontaneously be a person that is like God and expresses God. When we exercise control over ourselves and bear with others, godliness needs to be and is developed in our spiritual life that we may be like God and express Him. In this godliness, the divine nature develops further in a love for the brothers. The consummation of this development is that in brotherly love the nobler love is developed.
Some sisters who live together may love one another when they contact the Lord. In this kind of love, however, one of the sisters will still complain. She might say, “Why is it that I have to do all the dishes and that sister would never help me.” This proves that there is the need of further development. Our brotherly love needs to be developed further into a nobler, higher, and even super love which in Greek is agape, used in the New Testament for the divine love, which God is in His nature (1 John 4:8, 16). By the time the divine nature within us has been developed to such an extent, we love everyone. We become like our heavenly Father who loves the ones who love Him and even loves the ones who hate Him. If we were God, we would send the rain only on the lovers and keep the rain from all the haters. God, however, “makes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the just and the unjust” (Matt. 5:45). This is the super and nobler love, and this nobler love is the very basic constituent of God’s divine nature.
I hope that we all have seen that there are two lines which unveil to us the partaking and enjoying of the divine nature. John’s line is to remain in the fellowship and Peter’s line is to develop the divine seed sown within us, until it reaches its consummation in the nobler love, agape, which is one of the constituents of God’s divine nature. We need to remain in the divine fellowship, and for the divine seed to develop itself, we need to cooperate. We should not resist or keep obstacles in the way of this development. We have to cooperate with the development of this basic divine blessing which is the divine seed sown into us and substantiated by the allotted faith. Then we will reach to the top of the enjoyment of the divine nature which is to partake of the nobler love. At this point, we not only love those who behave themselves in the brothers house but also love those who do not behave.
Ephesians 5:25 charges the husbands to love their wives. A certain husband may feel that since his wife is not so lovable, he could not love her. Furthermore, he may think that if his wife were like another sister, he would love her. Even if another sister were married to this brother, however, he would still not be satisfied. What he needs to experience is the nobler love. Our poor human love is always short. To say or to think that you cannot love your wife proves that you have not partaken of the divine nature to the extent that you are experiencing and enjoying the divine love. If you have partaken of the divine nature to such an extent, you would love any kind of wife. A nobler love does not exercise any kind of choice.
When we remain in the fellowship we touch the source and we enjoy the divine love as the essence and the divine light as the expression. This means we partake of the divine nature. In this enjoyment we let the divine seed of the allotted faith develop to its consummation—the divine nobler love.