2 Peter 3:18

And, (1.) We must grow in grace. He had in the beginning of the epistle exhorted us to add one grace to another, and here he advises us to grow in all grace, in faith, and virtue, and knowledge. By how much the stronger grace is in us, by so much the more stedfast shall we be in the truth.

It is easy to forsake the will of God, and follow our own; but this will bring leanness into the soul. It is easy to satisfy ourselves without being possessed of the holiness and happiness of the gospel. It is easy to call these frames and feelings, and then to oppose faith to one and Christ to the other.

To quicken and excite us to a serious minding and firm adhering to what God has revealed to us by the prophets and apostles, we are told that there will be scoffers, men who will make a mock of sin, and of salvation from it. God's way of saving sinners by Jesus Christ is what men will scoff at, and that in the last days, under the gospel.

But grow in grace - Increase in the image and favor of God; every grace and Divine influence which ye have received is a seed, a heavenly seed, which, if it be watered with the dew of heaven from above, will endlessly increase and multiply itself. He who continues to believe, love, and obey, will grow in grace, and continually increase in the knowledge of Jesus Christ, as his sacrifice, sanctifier, counsellor, preserver, and final Savior.

IT is worth while to remark that this passage immediately follows the 17th verse, where the Apostle says, "Beloved, seeing you know these things before, beware lest you, also, being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own steadfastness. But grow in Grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ." He puts the one after the other, as if the one must be the means of the other.

Eph 4:15, "Grow up into Him, the Head, Christ." grace and . . . knowledge of . . . Christ--"the grace and knowledge of Christ" [ALFORD rightly]: the grace of which Christ is the author, and the knowledge of which Christ is the object. for ever--Greek, "to the day of eternity": the day that has no end: "the day of the Lord," beginning with the Lord's coming.

BEHOLD, Beloved, our perpetual dangers. Where can we go to escape from peril? Where shall we fly to avoid temptation? If we venture into business, worldliness is there. If we retire to our homes, trials are there. One would have imagined that in the green pastures of the Word of God there would have been perfect security for God's sheep. Surely no lion shall be there and no ravenous beast shall go up from there! Alas, it is not so. For even while we are reading the Bible we are still exposed to peril.

BEHOLD, Beloved, our perpetual dangers. Where can we go to escape from peril? Where shall we fly to avoid temptation? If we venture into business, worldliness is there. If we retire to our homes, trials are there. One would have imagined that in the green pastures of the Word of God there would have been perfect security for God's sheep. Surely no lion shall be there and no ravenous beast shall go up from there! Alas, it is not so. For even while we are reading the Bible we are still exposed to peril. Not that the Truth of God is dangerous, but that our corrupt hearts can find poison in the very flowers of Paradise. Mark what our Apostle says of the writings of St. Paul, "Wherein are some things which are hard to be understood." And mark the danger to which we are exposed, lest we, being unlearned and unstable, should wrest even the Word of God itself to our own destruction. With the Bible before our eyes, we may still commit sin—pondering over the hallowed Words of Inspiration we may receive a deadly wound from "the error of the wicked." Even at the horns of the altar we need that God should still cover us with the shadow of His wings. It is a very pleasing reflection that our gracious Father has provided a shield by which we may be sheltered from every ill and in our text the evil of heterodoxy finds a suitable preventative. We are in danger, lest misinterpreting Scripture we should make God say what He does not—and lest by departing from the teaching of the Holy Spirit we should wrest the letter of the Word and lose its spirit—and lest from the letter draw a meaning which may be for our soul's ruin. How shall we escape this? Peter, speaking by the Holy Spirit, has in the words before us, pointed out our safeguard. While we search the Scriptures and grow in acquaintance with them, see to it that we grow in Divine Grace.

IT is worth while to remark that this passage immediately follows the 17th verse, where the Apostle says, "Beloved, seeing you know these things before, beware lest you, also, being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own steadfastness. But grow in Grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ." He puts the one after the other, as if the one must be the means of the other. There had been some, in the Apostle's day, who had twisted, to their own destruction, certain expressions in the Epistles of Paul which Peter said were "hard to be understood." And, therefore, he warned Christian men and women to take heed lest they, "being led away with the error of the wicked," should "fall from their own steadfastness." In order that they might know how to stand and to be preserved from falling, he gave them this direction—"grow in Grace," for the way to stand is to grow. The way to be steadfast is to go forward. There is no standing except by progression. If you see even such a simple thing as a child's top rolling along your floor at home, you will observe that it will always stand upright as long as it keeps on rolling—but when it stops, down it goes! So is it with the Christian—as long as he is in motion, he stands—but if it were possible for the motion to cease, then the Christian would fall from his steadfastness. Glory be to God, he will be kept from falling, and he shall be presented faultless before the Throne of God! The way to stand, then, is to go forward. The way to be steadfast is to progress.

But grow in grace - Compare Col 1:10. Religion in general is often represented as “grace,” since every part of it is the result of grace, or of unmerited favor; and to “grow in grace” is to increase in that which constitutes true religion. Religion is as susceptible of cultivation and of growth as any other virtue of the soul. It is feeble in its beginnings, like the grain of mustard seed, or like the germ or blade of the plant, and it increases as it is cultivated. There is no piety in the world which is not the result of cultivation, and which cannot be measured by the degree of care and attention bestowed upon it. No one becomes eminently pious, any more than one becomes eminently learned or rich, who does not intend to; and ordinarily men in religion are what they design to be. They have about as much religion as they wish, and possess about the character which they intend to possess. When men reach extraordinary elevations in religion, like Baxter, Payson, and Edwards, they have gained only what they meant to gain; and the gay and worldly professors of religion who have little comfort and peace, have in fact the characters which they designed to have. If these things are so, then we may see the propriety of the injunction “to grow in grace;” and then too we may see the reason why so feeble attainments are made in piety by the great mass of those who profess religion. And in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ - See the notes at Joh 17:3. Compare the notes at Col 1:10. To know the Lord Jesus Christ - to possess just views of his person, character, and work - is the sum and essence of the Christian religion; and with this injunction, therefore, the apostle appropriately closes this epistle. […]