Matthew 19:16-17:

¹⁶Now a man came up to Jesus and asked, “Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?”  ¹⁷“Why do you ask me about what is good?” Jesus replied. “There is only One who is good. If you want to enter life, obey the commandments.”

Strong’s Concordance translates “goodness” (from the NIV) as “moral excellence” (in the NAS) and from the original Greek writing, “Moral excellence” can be best translated as a virtuous course of thought and feeling.

No wonder as Christians we want to do good, but many times can’t.  As our recognition of sin increases, so do our battles against sin.  But as we become more Christ-like through godliness, we can turn the virtuous thought and feeling into action.

When the rich young man approached Christ to ask him “Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?” Christ responded with “obey the commandments.”  Since the commandment is love, God is therefore love.  Thus, Christ confirmed the answer of the expert in Luke 10:27 as the sum of the law equating to love the Lord and love your neighbor.  There is only One who is good and all good comes from the One.  So by following what is good (loving the Lord and loving your neighbor), you are also following the only good One.

This is where the difference between goodness and godliness is distinguished:  Goodness is the desire to uphold the law.  Godliness is upholding the law.  With faith, we desire to uphold the law because we put our eternal trust in the One that is good.  But it is impossible to uphold the law without adding to our faith godliness and the qualities between goodness and godliness.  Therefore, it will take quite a while to develop the godliness quality!

Most Christians are not only stuck at self-control, but also stuck at goodness.  Therefore, where we find stagnation and being stuck at a particular quality, is where we realize that we are ungodly because in order to add to ourselves godliness, we need to be able to turn what we want to do into action, which is more than mere thought.

Someone who is Christ-like can act upon his moral excellence.  Someone who isn’t Christ-like can only be eager to act upon his moral excellence, if eager at all.  Through gaining knowledge, wisdom, and understanding, our recognition of sin will increase and thus, we can choose to live by the Spirit.  In the meantime, our misdeeds of the body thrive so that we are living by our bodies, which are enslaved to death.  If we were truly living by the Spirit, the misdeeds of our body would have died and therefore, we would be dead to sin but alive in Christ.  Galatians 5:22-25 would finally apply to us!

We should strive to live by the Spirit, although our bodies want to commit sin.  With our spirit obligated to God, we then have the choice and the power to say no to sin.  But until we grow our knowledge, wisdom, and understanding as we go through trials of self-control, perseverance, and humility, we remain unaware of our imperfection in Christ due to the unconscious and conscious sins that we do not recognize until we look in retrospect.

-M

Some of my favorite verses on sanctification are 2 Peter 1:5-9:

“For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But if anyone does not have them, he is nearsighted and blind, and has forgotten that he has been cleansed from his past sins.

James 1:4-5:

“Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.  If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God…”

James 3:13:

“Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show it by his good life, by deeds done in humility that comes from wisdom.”

Combining these three verses together marks the biblical route of growing from faith to love:

Faith, Goodness, Knowledge, Self-Control, Perseverance, Wisdom, Humility, Godliness, Love

Over the next few days, I am going to take us through a study of what exactly Peter and James meant.  For instance, what is the difference between goodness and godliness, self-control and perseverance, knowledge and wisdom, etc.  Better yet, what is the love that we are called to obtain?  Having a knowledge of these insights helps us to mark our progress in the Lord and to realize where we need the most work.

-M