Note both 2 Peter and Jude insist on our building up and progress, in presence of the decay of the Church and coming judgment. So that it is, as judging the outward state, a more close entering into relationship with God, in communion with what He is, and His ways in Christ as Lord. We have the precious promises as precious faith, but look forward as called by glory, and so are growing up, but that in the knowledge of God who has called us. We have all things necessary to life and godliness, but it is by that according to which we are called, that there is intelligently a partaking of the divine nature, i.e., a forming of our souls morally into what it is—its likeness. Positive evil we have escaped from.