Preached Sunday, December 15, 2013 from 2 Peter 1:16-19
Theme: Growth in the Christian life depends greatly on remembering the things that are ours in Christ.
(Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture references are taken from The Holy Bible, New King James Version; copyright 1982, Thomas Nelson, Inc.)
Over the past few weeks, we’ve been studying from the first chapter of the remarkable little New Testament letter of 2 Peter.
As we have seen, in just the first few verses of this letter, Peter has made the wonderful affirmation to his fellow believers that—right now, because of their relationship with Jesus Christ by faith—they have the promise from God of “all things that pertain to life and godliness”. Everything that we will ever need to meet any challenge in life that God allows to come our way, and all that we will ever need to be everything that God wants us to be, is now already ours as an inexhaustible resource through the riches of Christ Himself. We need search for nothing more than what we already possess in Jesus Himself.
And then, as we have gone on to discover, Peter calls on his fellow believers to put that promise to work, rise up, and faithfully build on the foundation of faith with the kind of things with which God says we are to build. “But also for this very reason,” he writes, “giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love. For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ” (vv. 5-8).
And as we saw last week, Peter was very eager to remind us of these things; and to urge us to keep them fix them in our thinking—so that we’ll be able to call upon them and put them to use in the circumstances of life. He knew that the time would come when he would no longer be physically present to exhort his fellow Christians to do these things. “Moreover,” he wrote, “I will be careful to ensure that you always have a reminder of these things after my decease” (v. 15). That, I believe, was his great motive in writing this letter.
And now, as we come to this morning’s passage, we come to the reason why he was so earnest to convey these things to us—and why we can be so confident in doing them. He reveals the heart-passion that motivated his diligence as a proclaimer of the gospel message.
I believe this is an amazing passages in Scripture—something that needs very much to be declared in our day and age. But before we read it, I feel it’s important to step back for a moment and read about the event in Peter’s life that is spoken of in it. And to do that, I ask that you keep a finger in 2 Peter 1; but turn back with me to the ninth chapter of Mark’s Gospel. Historians tell us that Mark wrote his Gospel in accordance with the testimony of Peter; and so, I believe it’s the place we should go to understand this remarkable event—perhaps the most remarkable event in all of Peter’s life.
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This event occurred back in the days when Peter and the other eleven apostles were serving our Lord during His earthly ministry. The Lord Jesus had just gotten through telling them that, in order to be His followers, they must be willing to give their all for Him—to take up their cross and follow Him. And then, immediately after this very serious word of instruction, He told them, “Assuredly, I say to you that there are some standing here who will not taste death till they see the kingdom of God present with power” (Mark 9:1). What a remarkable thing to tell them! And they couldn’t have imagined that the event He was describing would come to pass only a few days later!
Mark tells us, “Now after six days Jesus took Peter, James, and John, and led them up on a high mountain apart by themselves . . .” (v. 2a). Jesus didn’t take all the disciples with Him on this journey up the mountain. He only took these three of them—three of His closest disciples. It’s then—once they were up on the mountain, apart from the others—that we’re told, “and He was transfigured before them” (v. 2b). He was changed before their very eyes! Mark—probably telling us what Peter had passed on to him—wrote, “His clothes became shining, exceedingly white, like snow, such as no launderer on earth can whiten them. And Elijah appeared to them with Moses, and they were talking with Jesus” (vv. 3-4). It was as if our Lord drew back the veil of His mortal flesh for a brief moment, and revealed who He truly was to these three disciples—giving them, as it were, a preview of the display of the divine glory that would characterize Him at His second coming. What’s more, Elijah and Moses—two of the greatest prophets of the Old Testament—appeared with Him in the glory that they now possess before Him. How it was that the three disciples recognized these two prophets isn’t told to us. Perhaps they heard Jesus identifying them by name. In the account of this story that Luke tells us in his Gospel, we’re told that they appeared with Him in glory, and talked about the death He was about to accomplish in Jerusalem.
What a stunning sight this must have been! It wasn’t a vision or a dream. It’s presented as something that was actually happening before them in (if we may put it this way) ‘physical’ reality; and that they were seeing with their own eyes and hearing with their own ears. And I believe it was terrifying scene in terms of its majesty. So often in the Scriptures, whenever someone has a profound encounter with God as He really is, it’s something that is utterly frightening—but, at the same time, glorious and wonderful. Mark tells us, “Then Peter answered and said to Jesus, ‘Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; and let us make three tabernacles: one for You, one for Moses, and one for Elijah'” (v. 5). Peter wasn’t thinking rightly, however, in what he was saying. In his traumatic condition, he was suggesting that he and the other disciples set up places of worship for all three—thinking that Moses and Elijah, in their glory, were on an equal standing with the Lord Jesus. Mark tells us that Peter blurted this out, “because he did not know what to say, for they were greatly afraid” (v. 6.b). I couldn’t blame them though; could you?
But as if to quiet Peter’s rash words and to clarify his understanding, Mark tells us, “And a cloud came and overshadowed them; and a voice came out of the cloud, saying, ‘This is My beloved Son. Hear Him!'” (v. 7). Those words sound very much like the words that God the Father had spoken long ago at Jesus’ baptism; don’t they? How awesome and sobering it must have been to hear the Father’s voice!—and yet, how wonderful! And Mark tells us, “Suddenly, when they had looked around, they saw no one anymore, but only Jesus with themselves” (v. 8). What a picture that presents to us!—God spoke and said, “‘This is My beloved Son. Hear Him!'”; and when the cloud was taken away, and they opened their eyes, they saw no one but Jesus—as if He alone was being displayed as that beloved Son of which the Father spoke.
Mark goes on to tell us, “Now as they came down from the mountain, He [that is, Jesus] commanded them that they should tell no one the things they had seen, till the Son of Man had risen from the dead” (v. 9). That would have been extremely hard to do; don’t you think? They had just seen the most amazing thing anyone could ever see on planet earth! How hard it would have been to keep it inside and say nothing about it! They would have had a very stunned walk down the mountainside. And Mark tells us, “So they kept this word to themselves, questioning what the rising from the dead meant” (v. 10).
Now; don’t you agree that this would have to have been one of the most remarkable experiences of these three men’s lives?—if not the most remarkable experience? They would have thought about it for the rest of their days—and would have been extremely glad to talk much about it after our Lord rose from the dead. To some degree, I believe it would have been the most decisive event of their lives. They would have divided their lives between “before” and “after” this event. We don’t know what James—who was the brother of John—would have had to say about it. We have no record in the Scriptures of anything he wrote or preached. But we do know that he was so impacted by the Lord Jesus that he laid down his own life as a martyr for his testimony of Him (see Acts 12:2). Perhaps John is, in part, referring to this same amazing event at the beginning of his first epistle—found just a few pages ahead in your Bible from 2 Peter—when he wrote;
That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, concerning the Word of life—the life was manifested, and we have seen, and bear witness, and declare to you that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested to us—that which we have seen and heard we declare to you, that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. And these things we write to you that your joy may be full (1 John 1:1-4).
And this remarkable event is clearly the very thing that the apostle Peter is writing about in our passage this morning in 2 Peter 1:16-19. After telling us about our provision of all things pertaining to life and godliness in Christ; and then calling us to build upon that faith; and then telling us that he would be eager to remind us of these things in whatever way he could, he then spurs us to action when he writes;
For we did not follow cunningly devised fables when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of His majesty. For He received from God the Father honor and glory when such a voice came to Him from the Excellent Glory: “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” And we heard this voice which came from heaven when we were with Him on the holy mountain. And so we have the prophetic word confirmed, which you do well to heed as a light that shines in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts . . . (2 Peter 1:16-19).
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Let me share with you why I think this is such an important passage of Scripture to consider in times such as ours today.
We often hear people dismiss the Christian faith as a “myth”—characterizing it as mere fantasy that simple-minded and emotionally weak folks have invented for themselves, without any basis in reality whatsoever, in order to help them cope with the harshness of life. Some ‘celebrity atheists’ have even gotten pretty insulting about it in recent years—saying that our belief in God and our faith in Jesus Christ is on the same level of intellectual immaturity as a belief in the Easter Bunny or the Great Pumpkin.
But as this passage shows, nothing could be further from the truth. The basis of our faith—from the testimony of the earliest witnesses of it—is an eyewitness account of actual, real-life events. I don’t believe that such a thing can be said of any other religious system on earth. No other system of faith bases itself so thoroughly on an eyewitness account of actual historic events as ours does. The Christian faith is based on the truth-claims of the testimony of real-life events; a testimony that can be tested and verified in the same way any other testimony would be verified in a court of law. And so, ours is a profoundly realistic, fact-based religious faith.
And that is why I believe Peter was so motivated to share it. And what’s more, I believe it’s why he was so motivated to urge us to give ourselves whole-heartedly to it. It’s why he could say in 1 Peter 5:12, “I have written to you briefly, exhorting and testifying that this is the true grace of God in which you stand.” The gospel of Jesus Christ that we have placed our faith in is the real thing; and it deserves for us to give ourselves fully to it. What Peter saw of the Lord Jesus Christ on that mountain was real and true; and it assures us of our ultimate victory if we give everything we are to Him.
As this passage shows us, the ‘eyewitness’ account of the apostles about Christ is evidence demands of us a whole-hearted, earnest obedience of faith. Let’s look a little closer at what Peter tells us in it.
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First, notice how Peter shows us that . . .
1. THE CLAIMS OF THE GOSPEL CANNOT BE
DISMISSED AS MERE ‘MYTHS’ (v. 16a).
Peter wrote, “For we did not follow cunningly devised fables when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ . . .” And notice first what it was that he and the other apostles declared to us. He said that they declared “the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ”.
His “power” speaks of the greatness of the display of His authority. We’re told in the Scripture that “all authority” has been given to Him (Matthew 28:18); and that the Father has given “all things into His hands” (John 13:3). It will be at His name that every knee will bow; and that every tongue will one day confess Him as Lord (Philippians 2:10-11). Even Moses and Elijah were subject to Him.
And His “coming”, of course, speaks of the time at which that power will be most marvelously displayed. Jesus Himself said;
Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And He will send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other (Matthew 24:30-31).
And notice that Peter asserts clearly that he and the other apostles did not follow “cunningly devised fables” when they made these things known to us. The Greek word that Peter used is muthois—from which we get the word “myth”. A myth is a fable or a fantasy story that people create in order to help them define their subjective and cultural experiences—even though it has no basis in reality whatsoever.
In the ancient world that Peter lived, mythology was a part of everyday life; and myths were used everywhere to explain almost everything. Often, they were very cunningly devised and elaborate stories and fables. (Some of us had to study them in school—and hated almost every minute of it, by the way!) But Peter was resolutely denying that the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ is any such thing.
Dear brothers and sisters; don’t ever let anyone get away with dismissing the gospel of Jesus Christ as a mere “myth”. Don’t sit by when anyone says that the gospel of Jesus Christ that you believe is a story that people have made up to bring themselves comfort. The gospel was never declared as a myth. And when anyone says it is a myth, we can simply take them to these words of the apostle Peter; who said, “For we did not follow cunningly devised fables when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ . . .”
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Now; that’s what we might call Peter’s negative “denial”. The gospel of Jesus Christ is absolutely not a myth. But next, note what Peter goes on to say about this gospel as a positive “affirmation”; that . . .
2. THE CLAIMS IT MAKES ARE BASED ON
EYEWITNESS ACCOUNTS OF ACTUAL EVENTS (vv. 16b-18).
Peter takes us back to that remarkable event with the Lord Jesus on the mountain; and says that he and two other apostles “were eyewitnesses of His majesty. For He received from God the Father honor and glory when such a voice came to Him from the Excellent Glory: ‘This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.’ And we heard this voice which came from heaven when we were with Him on the holy mountain” (vv. 16b-18).
Look at how he asserts that he and the other apostles “were eyewitnesses of His majesty”. I believe that this could refer to the whole of Jesus’ life on earth. After all, the apostle John began his Gospel by saying, “And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). But I believe it most specifically refers to the amazing event that he, James and John saw together on the mountain. Jesus had said that some of His disciples would “not taste death till they see the kingdom of God present with power”; and these three on the mountain truly were “eyewitnesses” to the “power” and “coming” of the Lord Jesus that they declared to us. They actually saw—with their own eyes—the majesty of Jesus on display in ‘preview’ of His second coming.
And not only did they witness it with their eyes, but they also heard it with their ears. Peter described how the voice of the Father spoke from heaven and said, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” Peter said, “And we heard this voice which came from heaven when we were with Him on the holy mountain.” He didn’t mean that it was simply an impression that came upon their hearts and minds spiritually. He is saying—very specifically—that they heard the sound physically their ears.
And it’s very important that this wasn’t just the testimony of Peter. He used the word “we”; and in doing so, he is reminding us that there were three witnesses to this event—all of whom saw with their eyes and heard with their ears the same exact thing. It’s not just one man saying this. It’s not even just two. It’s three men—all of whom bore a sensory testimony to an actual event in time/space reality.
People sometimes dismiss the gospel of Jesus Christ by saying that you can’t prove the claims of Christianity ‘scientifically’. But when they say that, they are suggesting that the wrong tool be used for the job. “Science” isn’t the correct tool to use to validate the truthfulness of a historic account; because the scientific process requires the ability to repeat an event in a controlled environment—over and over—in order to test and prove a hypothesis. Obviously, it’s impossible to prove truthfulness or falsity of the testimony of any historic event in that way. Rather, the proper way to test the truth of such a claim is through corroborating credible eyewitness testimony. And that means that the claims of the gospel are proven to be true in the same exact way that the truth of any other testimony is tested in a court of law.
As I was thinking about this, I remembered an old book I have, and that I recently pulled down off the shelf. It’s an amazing book that was written by a man named Simon Greenleaf about 125 years ago. Simon Greenleaf was one of the most noted authorities on law in the world. He was a founding professor of law at Harvard School of Law; and wrote the standard textbook, “Treatise on The Law of Evidence”. It was said that he taught one inviolable principle in his classrooms at Harvard, and that was that a conclusion about a significant matter should not be made without first carefully and fairly considering the evidence. But he was not a Christian. When one of his students challenged him about Christianity with respect to his inviolable principle, the professor admitted that he had not considered the evidence for the Christian faith. When he did, he became a Christian!
He later wrote the book I mentioned—one that is considered, even today, to be the greatest examination of the reliability of the Gospel writers that has ever been produced. In it, he said:
All that Christianity asks of men on this subject is, that they would be consistent with themselves; that they would treat its evidences as they treat the evidence of other things; and that they would try and judge its actors and witnesses, as they deal with their fellow men, when testifying to human affairs and actions, in human tribunals. Let the witnesses be compared with themselves, with each other, and with surrounding facts and circumstances; and let their testimony be sifted, as if it were given in a court of justice, on the side of the adverse party, the witnesses being subjected to a rigorous cross-examination. The result, it is confidently believed, will be an undoubting conviction of their integrity, ability, and truth (Simon Greenleaf, The Testimony of The Evangelists Examined by The Rules of Evidence Administered in Courts of Justice [Newark, N.J.: Sony & Sage, 1903], p. 46).
Peter was making the claim that he was an witness to the glory and honor and divine majesty of the Lord Jesus Christ—not just with his eyes, but also with his ears; and not just by himself, but along with two others. As the Bible tells us, when it comes to matters of testimony, “by the mouth of two or three witnesses the matter shall be established” (Deuteronomy 19:15). And we most certainly have a reliable witness to the factual evidence of our faith in Jesus Christ.
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But Peter wasn’t writing this to simply give us a defense of the faith. He means for it to motivate us to action. He means for us to give ourselves fully to the work of building upon the foundation of our faith in Christ. And so, he goes on—finally—to show us that . . .
3. THE OLD TESTAMENT PROMISES ABOUT JESUS ARE
NOW CONFIRMED AND DEMAND A RESPONSE OF FAITH (v. 19).
Peter says, “And so we have the prophetic word confirmed, which you do well to heed as a light that shines in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts . . .”
What is the ‘prophetic word’ that he speaks of? I believe it would certainly be the Old Testament in general. But I believe it’s the prophetic promises about the Lord Jesus in particular. Those prophetic promises would have been symbolically represented by the presence of Moses and Elijah on the mountain, talking with Jesus about His upcoming sacrifice on the cross. And Peter says that we now have these “confirmed”—all the great promises we have concerning Jesus; such as Genesis 3:15, or Genesis 12:3, or Numbers 24:17, or Psalm 22, or Isaiah 53, or Zechariah 9:9, or Malachi 4:2. They have been confirmed by the fact that they have been fulfilled by Christ.
I hope I don’t seem irreverent in putting it this way; but if I have a bus schedule in my hand, and it says that the bus will come at such and such a time, and the bus actually arrives on schedule, then I have the bus schedule “confirmed”. I can trust what it says. And in the same way, the promises concerning Jesus have been fulfilled. Peter, James and John witnessed it with their own eyes and ears—not only on the holy mountain, but also in the empty tomb. All that the prophetic Scriptures have told us about Jesus has been confirmed; and we can trust our eternal destiny to what those Scriptures say.
And we must do so. Peter goes on to say that we do well to heed it “as a light that shines in a dark place”—that is, just like a lamp that illuminates a dark and dingy room and shows us the way to go until the bright rays of sunshine shine through the windows. One day, the Lord Jesus will return; and that’s when the day will truly “dawn”, and the “morning star” will truly rise in our hearts. But until then, the prophetic word is our lamp—and it’s light has been fully confirmed. We can trust confidently in what it says and walk in its light.
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Dear brothers and sisters in Christ; our faith in Jesus Christ is not based on myths. It is a realistic faith based on factual events that are declared to us by reliable eyewitnesses. Those eyewitnesses assure us that Jesus is everything that the Scriptures declare Him to be. We can trust Him fully.
Let’s be as eager, then, to build on our faith as Peter was to urge us to do so! Let’s give ourselves whole-heartedly to our faith in Jesus Christ! The manifestation of His glory assures us that no one who trusts Him—and gives their all for Him—will ever be disappointed!