Christian Growth.
The word in the text which has been translated in our version "add" is a very pictorial term, and refers to a choir of well-trained musicians, such as Heman or Asaph led in the days of David and Solomon; and the idea which it implies is that as the different instruments of the great orchestral concert of the Jewish service blended together and produced a noble and harmonious outburst of praise to Jehovah, as the singers and the musicians each performed his special part, and all combined in one perfect unison of sound, so the growth of the Christian character should be accomplished by the harmonious development of each moral quality, and the Christian life, composed of so many different elements, should be one continuous hymn of praise to Him who is our song and our salvation. There are two ways in which we may add to our faith all the graces which the Apostle enumerates. We may add them as a builder adds stone to stone in his wall, or we may add them as a plant adds cell to cell in its structure. Both these modes of increase are used separately or in combination in Scripture to illustrate Christian growth. We are said to be rooted and grounded in love, and to grow into a holy temple in the Lord. We are rooted as plants in the Divine life, deriving our nourishment and stability from it; we are grounded as living stones on the precious Corner-stone; the double image expressing in combination the active and passive sides of Christian faith. And so likewise the combination of ideas borrowed from plant-life and from architecture to express the growth of Christian life unto a holy temple in the Lord denotes the two modes in which growth is made: by active exertion and passive trusting; by being fellow-workers with God, working out our own salvation, while we realise that it is God that worketh in us both to will and to do of His good pleasure. We have not only to rest, after the manner of a building, on the finished work of Christ, but we have to draw, after the manner of a plant, out of God's fulness, grace for grace.
I. The first thing that we are commanded by the Apostle to "add" to our faith is virtue, meaning by this term vigour, manliness. In our faith we are to manifest this quality. Our faith is to be itself a source of power to us. We are to be strong in faith. It is to be to us the power of God unto salvation, enabling us to overcome the temptations and evils of the world and to rise above all the infirmities of our own nature. It is not enough that the Christian character should be beautiful: it should also be strong. Strength and beauty should be the characteristics not only of God's house, but also of God's people. But how often is the quality of strength absent from piety! Piety in the estimation of the world is synonymous with weakness and effeminacy. The world is apt to think that it is only weaklings who are pious persons who have neither strong intellects, nor strong affections, nor strong characters. Young men are too apt to be ashamed of confessing Christ openly before men, under the fear that they should be regarded as something between milksops and hypocrites. And too many professing Christians are confessedly "feeble folk." It is most necessary, therefore, that we should add to our faith courage, manliness. Our faith should be manifested, as it was in olden times, by a victorious strength which is able to overcome the world, which fears the Lord and knows no other fear.
II. To this strength or manliness we are further commanded to "add" knowledge. In our manliness we are to seek after knowledge. The quality of courage is to be shown by the fearlessness of our researches into all the works and ways of God. We are not to be deterred by any dread of consequences from investigating and finding out the whole truth. The Bible places no restrictions upon an inquiring spirit. It does not prevent men from examining and proving all things, and bringing even the most sacred subjects to the test of reason. God says to us in regard to the holiest things, "Come and let us reason together." He has given to us the faculties by means of which we may find out truth and store up knowledge; and He wishes as to exercise these faculties freely in every department of His works.
III. But further the Apostle enjoins us to add to our knowledge temperance. This had originally a wider meaning, and covered a larger breadth of character. It meant sober-mindedness, a chastened temper and habit of the soul a wise self-control by which the higher powers kept the lower well in hand and restrained them from excesses of all kinds. And this sober-mindedness, which expresses better than any other single word the true temper of the Christian in this world, is an indispensable adjunct to the Christian character. With wonderful sagacity, the Apostle commands us to add to our knowledge temperance; for there is a tendency in knowledge to puff us up and fill our hearts with pride.
IV. To this self-government we must add patience. Our self-government itself is to be an exercise of patience. In our temperance we are to be patient, not giving way to a hasty temper or a restless disposition. As the plant slowly ripens its fruit, so we are to ripen our Christian character by patient waiting and patient enduring. It is a quiet virtue, this patience, and is apt to be overlooked and underestimated. But in reality it is one of the most precious of the Christian graces. The noisy virtues, the ostentatious graces, have their day; patience has eternity. And while it is the most precious, it is also the most difficult. It is far easier to work than to wait, to be active than to be wisely passive. But it is when we are still that we know God, when we wait upon God that we renew our strength. Patience places the soul in the condition in which it is most susceptible to the quickening influences of heaven and most ready to take advantage of new opportunities.
V. But to this patience must be united godliness. Godliness is Godlikeness, having the same mind in us that was in Christ Jesus, viewing everything from the Divine point, and living in our inner life as fully in the light of His presence as we live in our outer life in the light of the sun. And exercising ourselves unto this godliness, our patience will have a Divine quality of strength, endurance, beauty, imparted to it such as no mere natural patience possesses. In our godliness, as the Apostle says, we must have brotherly kindness; our brotherly kindness must be an essential element of our godliness. We are to show our godliness by our brotherly kindness. Sin separates between God and man, and between man and man. Grace unites man to God, and man to man. It is only when the higher relation is formed that we are able to fulfil perfectly the lower. But brotherly kindness is apt to be restricted towards friends only towards those who belong to the same place or the same Church, or who are Christians. It must therefore be conjoined with charity. In our brotherly kindness we are to exercise a large-hearted charity. We are to mingle with it godliness in order to expand our charity, to make it like His who maketh His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. Universal kindness of thought, word, and deed is what is implied in this charity. Such, then, are the graces which we are enjoined by the Apostle to add to each other, to develop from each other, not as separate fruits dispersed widely over the branches of a tree, but as the berries of a cluster of grapes growing on the same stem, mutually connected and mutually dependent. Such are the graces, to use the musical illustration of the text, which we are to temper, to modify the one by the other, just as the musician in tuning his instrument gives to each note not its exact mathematical value, but alters it to suit its neighbour notes, and thus produces a delightful harmony.
H. Macmillan, British Weekly Pulpit,vol. ii., p. 513.