2 Peter 1:8 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

For if these things be in you This faith, this courage, this knowledge, &c. Not if they be understood and professed by you merely, but if they be in you, experienced in your hearts, and evinced in your lives; and abound Increase more and more, otherwise you fall short; they make you They cause; that ye shall neither be barren Or rather, slothful, as αργους signifies; nor unfruitful Cumberers of the ground; or taking pains to do good, but without success, your efforts being fruitless through your want of one or other of these graces. But these graces, possessed by you and kept in lively exercise, will neither suffer you to faint in your minds, nor be without fruit in your lives. Observe, reader, if there be in us less faithfulness, less watchfulness and care, less tenderness of conscience, less fervour of spirit, and diligence in working out our salvation: and serving God, and his cause, and people, since we were pardoned, than there was before; less outward obedience to the law of God, and less zeal and conscientiousness in doing his will, and glorifying him in and with our body and spirit, which are his, than when we were seeking remission of sins and regenerating grace, we are both slothful and unfruitful in the knowledge of Christ That is, in the faith, which in that case does not, cannot work by love.