What Sort Of Persons Ought You To Be In Leading Lives Of Holiness And Godliness?

“What Sort Of Persons Ought You To Be In Leading Lives Of Holiness And Godliness?
2 Peter 3:8-15a Advent 2 December 3, 2005

Advent is a season of urgency. It is a season of expectation. It is a season of hopefulness.
During Advent, the Scripture readings call us to live each day according to God’s future, when all of God’s promises for peace and justice and joy will be fulfilled. That’s what’s happening in the verses we read this morning, from Second Peter.

The anonymous author of Second Peter is addressing five congregations in Asia Minor.1 He is confronting false teachers in those congregations who are encouraging members not to believe in the parousia, or the end of all things. That’s because the first generation of Jesus people have died, but the end has not come! There is no parousia, these teachers are saying; there is no end of all things; there is no judgment!

What is the prevalent belief about that today, in our 21st century American comfort? How many people are motivated to live, today, by the belief that God is bringing to an end all things, and bringing judgment upon the earth?

The author of Second Peter expects a final, cataclysmic day to come. Listen again: But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a loud noise, and the elements will be dissolved with fire, and the earth and everything that is done on it will be disclosed.

This first century author is dealing with the same question that arises in the year of our Lord 2005: Why hasn’t that day of the Lord happened yet? According to the author of Second Peter, it is because God does not keep time as we do! It’s a mistake to have expected that the cataclysmic end would come immediately. In fact, God’s delay demonstrates God’s patience with us! Listen again: But do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day. The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some think of slowness, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance.

So. We are in-between. Here is the key verse in this morning’s reading: Since all these things are to be dissolved in this way, what sort of persons ought you to be in leading lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set ablaze and dissolved, and the elements will melt with fire?
Will there be a cataclysmic end to all things? Some of Scripture witnesses to that expectation. Most of Scripture does not. (Here’s an aside. This past week, a colleague who teaches about the interplay of religion and science said that when cosmologists describe what will happen when the earth does come to an end, billions of years from now, it sounds a lot like words from Second Peter: that “the elements will be dissolved with fire,” “set ablaze and dissolved,” “the elements will melt with fire.”)
Does the prospect of such an end to the earth, billions of years from now, motivate your behavior today? I’d be surprised if it did! However, for each one of us, individually, the end will come, and very soon for each one of us, because human life is very short. There’s urgency in that.

And it can be a source of hopeful expectation for those who are faithful. If you were here last week, you may remember my suggestion (following from Luther) that, we need have no fear of a “last judgment” because that judgment has happened for those who are baptized into the body of Christ. The final judgment happened when Christ rose from the dead. We have been baptized into Christ’s death and resurrection, and so, through our baptisms, we have been justified, and forgiven.

At the same time, of course, we are sinful! Luther writes in the Small Catechism that the old, unredeemed person in us must be drowned through daily repentance. We must return to our baptisms, daily! In that return, that repentance, our sinfulness is judged, daily. We are found guilty, daily. And we are forgiven, each day!

And so, to use the words from Second Peter: what sort of persons ought we to be in leading lives of holiness and godliness? How are you and I are being drawn by God the Holy Spirit along the path towards holiness? Those are questions especially appropriate during the season of Advent.
Luther puts it this way: “This life, therefore, is not godliness but the process of becoming godly, not health but getting well, not being but becoming, not rest but exercise. We are not now what we shall be, but we are on the way. The process is not yet finished, but it is actively going on. This is not the goal but it is the right road. At present everything does not gleam and sparkle, but everything is being cleansed.”2

What sort of persons ought we to be in leading lives of holiness and godliness, as God the Holy Spirit is doing all of this? The author of Second Peter, in chapter one, identifies signs of being drawn by God the Holy Spirit along the path of holiness. For this very reason, you must make every effort to support your faith with goodness, and goodness with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with endurance, and endurance with godliness, and godliness with mutual affection, and mutual affection with love.3 None of that is possible without the empowerment of the Holy Spirit.

St. Paul’s theology was much different from that of the author of Second Peter. But he can be used as commentary, in Galatians, with what he calls “the fruit of the Spirit”: By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.4 That’s how we act, when the Holy Spirit moves us to be the sort of persons we ought to be in leading lives of holiness and godliness.

The future belongs to God, when all of God’s promises of joy and peace will be fulfilled. This morning’s passage from Second Peter ends with these words: But, in accordance with his promise, we wait for new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness is at home. That means, of course, that this is not now a place of righteousness.

And so, there is urgency for us to become more and more people of righteousness! God the creator has intervened into our human flesh as Jesus the Christ, and has empowered us as Holy Spirit – because God desires certain ends for creation. We become the persons we ought to be as the Holy Spirit makes that possible – drawing us more deeply into lives of holiness and godliness.

In the name of God, who is Father and Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Pastor Andy Ballentine
St. Stephen Lutheran Church
Williamsburg, Virginia
1 See 1 Peter 1:1 to see the congregations addressed by these letters.
2 Luther, “Defense and Explanation Of All The Articles,” Luther’s Works, Vol. 32 (Philadelphia, Muhlenberg Press, 1958), p. 24.
3 2 Peter 1:5-7
4 Galatians 5:22-23a.