ostle puts great stress
upon that word in my text, which, unfortunately, is not rendered
adequately in our Bible, 'that by these ye might _become_ partakers of
the Divine nature.' He is not talking about a _being_, but about a
_becoming_. That is to say, God must ever be passing, moment by moment,
into our hearts if there is to be anything godly there. No more
certainly must this building, if we are to see, be continually filled
with light-beams that are urged from the central sun by its impelling
force than the spirit must be receiving, by momentary communication, the
gift of life from God if it is to live. Cut off the sunbeam from the sun
and it dies, and the house is dark; cut off the life from the root and
it withers, and the creature shrivels. The Christian man lives only by
continual derivation of life from God; and for ever and ever the secret
of his being and of his blessedness is not that he has become a
possessor, but that he has become a partaker, of the Divine nature.

And that participation ought to, and will, be a growing thing. By daily
increase we shall be made capable of daily increase. Life is growth; the
Divine life in Him is not growth, but in us it does grow, and our
infancy will be turned into youth; and our youth into maturity; and,
blessed be His name, the maturity will be a growing one, to which grey
hairs and feebleness will never come, nor a term ever be set. More and
more of God we may receive every day we live, and through the endless
ages of eternity; and if we have Him in our hearts, we shall live as
long as there is anything more to pass from God to us. Until the
fountain has poured its whole fulness into the cistern, the cistern will
never be broken. He who becomes partaker of the Divine nature can never
die. So as Christ taught us the great argument for immortality is the
present relation between God and us, and the fact that He is the God of
Abraham points to the resurrection life.

II. Look, in the second place, at the costly and sufficient means
employed for the realisation of this great purpose. 'He hath given to us
exceeding great and precious promises, that by these ye might become
partakers,' etc.

Of course the mere words of a promise will not communicate this Divine
life to men's souls. 'Promises' here must necessarily, I think, be
employed in the sense of fulfilment of the promises. And so we might
think of all the great and wondrous words which God has spoken in the
past,