Christ._ This is the contrast to that mythic and allegorical teaching
to which he has just alluded. From it men could derive neither help in
the present, nor hope for the future. It generated superstition, and
its followers believed a lie. Often it denied the continuity of
revelation, and cast aside all the records thereof. Like theosophic
dreams in every age, it was always unprofitable, nearly always
pernicious. On the other hand, the teaching of Christ's Apostles
proclaimed a power which could save men from their sins, and imparted
a hope that stretched out beyond the present, looking for the time
when the Lord would reappear. All power is given unto Christ. He is
made Redeemer and Lord, and is to be at last the Judge of men. The
assurance of His coming had been proclaimed by St. Peter in his former
letter as a consolation under affliction. Faith, tried by suffering,
will be found unto praise, and glory, and honour at the revelation of
Jesus Christ (1 Peter i. 7). This is the climax of the glad tidings of
the Gospel. But Christ comes to His people through all the days; and
they are conscious of His coming, and inspired thereby and enabled for
their work.
_But we were eye-witnesses of His majesty._ He has already (1 Peter
iii. 22) spoken of the fact of Christ's ascension; he is now about to
describe what was seen on the holy mount. These things are facts and
verities, and not fables. But yet there was more revealed in them than
either eye could grasp, or tongue could tell. They were God's truth in
a mystery, which supplied new thought for a whole life-time. So for
"eye-witnesses" the Apostle uses a word akin to that which twice over
he employs in the former Epistle (ii. 12; iii. 2) to describe the
effect which Christian lives, when fully scanned, shall have upon the
unbeliever. They shall have power to stop the mouths of opponents and
to win them to the faith which before they maligned. Such deep insight
into the power, and work, and glory of Jesus was imparted to the
Apostles at the Transfiguration. They were initiated into the wisdom
of God, and henceforth became prophets of the Incarnation; they were
convinced that the Jesus with whom they companied was very God
manifest in the flesh. The voice from heaven proclaimed it; it was
attested by the glorified presence of Moses and Elijah, and by the
majesty which for a moment broke through the veil of Christ's flesh.
Later on they saw Him risen from the dead, beheld His ascension into
glory, and heard from the angels the promise of His return. Not
without much meaning does the Apostle use a special pronoun
(ἐκείνου) as he dwells on this scene of His majesty. For he would
impress on his converts the identity of that Jesus whom he had known
in the flesh with the very Son of God sent down from heaven.
_For He received from God the Father honour and glory._ For the bright
cloud which overshadowed them on the mountain-top was the visible
token of the presence of God, as of old the cloud of glory had been,
where God dwelt above the cherubim; while the honour and glory of
Jesus were manifested when He was proclaimed to be the very Son of
God. _When there came such a voice to Him from the excellent glory,
This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased._ To express the
magnificence of the glory which he beheld, the Apostle uses a word not
found elsewhere in the New Testament. The Septuagint has it to
describe the splendour of Jeshurun's God, who rideth in His
_excellency_ on the skies (Deut. xxxiii. 26). And it is this outward
brightness of the shroud of the Godhead which tells all that human
powers can receive of the majesty which it hides, just as His palace,
the heavens, declares constantly the glory of God.
The words spoken by the heavenly voice vary here from the records of
each of the three Gospels. In one case the variation is slight, but
there is no precise agreement. Had the Epistle been the work of some
forger of a later age than St. Peter's, we may rest assured that there
would have been complete accord with one Evangelist or the other.
There is a like diversity in the records of the words of the
inscription above Christ's cross. Substantial truth, not verbal
preciseness, is what the Evangelists sought to leave to the Church;
and their fidelity is proved by nothing more powerfully than by the
diverse features of the Gospel narratives.
_And this voice we ourselves heard come out of heaven, when we were
with Him in the holy mount._ We learn here why the Apostles were taken
with Jesus to witness His transfiguration. Just before that event we
find (Matt. xvi. 21; Mark viii. 31; Luke ix. 22) it recorded by each
of the Synoptists that Jesus had begun to show unto His disciples how
He must suffer and die at Jerusalem. To Peter, who, as at other times,
was the mouthpiece of the rest, such a declaration was unacceptable;
but at his expression of displeasure he met the rebuke, "Get thee
behind Me, Satan." He, and the rest with him, felt no doubt that such
a death as Jesus had spoken of would be, humanly speaking, the ruin of
their hopes. What these hopes were they did not formulate, but we can
learn their character from some of their questionings. Now, on the top
of Tabor, these three representatives of the apostolic band behold
Moses and Elias appearing in glory, and Christ glorified more than
they; and the subject of which they spake was the very death of which
they had so disliked to hear: the decease which He was about to
accomplish (πληροῦν) in Jerusalem (Luke ix. 31). The verb
which the Evangelist uses tells of the fulfilment of a prescribed
course, and thus St. Peter was taught, and the rest with him, to speak
of that death afterwards as he does in his former letter. "Christ was
verily foreordained" to this redeeming work "before the foundation of
the world." They heard that He who was to die was the very Son of God.
The voice came from the glory of heaven; and from henceforth their
hearts were still, even Peter's voice being less heard than before.
Down from the mountain they brought much illumination, much solemn
pondering. We can feel why it was that "they held their peace, and
told no man in those days any of the things which they had seen"; we
can feel, too, that from henceforth the scene of this vision would be
the holy mount. God's voice had been heard there attesting the
Divinity of their Lord and Master; the place whereon they had thus
stood was for evermore holy ground.
XXII
_THE LAMP SHINING IN A DARK PLACE_
"And we have the word of prophecy _made_ more sure; whereunto ye
do well that ye take heed, as unto a lamp shining in a dark
place, until the day dawn, and the day-star arise in your hearts:
knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of private
interpretation. For no prophecy ever came by the will of man: but
men spake from God, being moved by the Holy Ghost."--2 PETER i.
19-21.
The rendering of the first words in this passage must be reckoned
among the distinct improvements of the Revised Version. As the
translation stands in the Authorised Version, "We have also a more
sure word of prophecy," it conveys a sense which many must have found
perplexing. The Apostle had just dwelt on the confirmation of faith,
both for himself and those to whom he preached, which was ministered
by the vision of the glory of Jesus and by the proclamation of His
Divinity by God's voice from heaven. Could any prophetic message vie
in his estimate with the assurance of such a revelation? Now what St.
Peter meant is made clear. _And we have the word of prophecy made more
sure_--more sure because we have received the confirmation of all that
the prophets spake dimly and in figure. The Apostle and the rest of
the Jewish people had been trained in the ancient Scriptures, and
gathered from them, some more and some less, light concerning God's
scheme of salvation. There were, however, but few who had attained a
true insight into what was revealed. They had dwelt, as a rule, too
exclusively on all that spake of the glory of the promised Redeemer
and of His coming to reign and to conquer. That there should be
suffering in His life, they had put out of sight, though the prophets
had foretold it; and so when Christ spake of His crucifixion, soon to
come to pass in Jerusalem, St. Peter exclaimed--and he had the
feelings of his nation with him--"That be far from Thee." The voice on
the holy mount and the words of Moses and Elias had opened their eyes
to the full drift of prophetic revelation; and by the illumination of
that scene of glory, where yet the lot of suffering was contemplated
as near at hand, there had been given to them a grasp of the whole
scope of prophecy, and their partial and distorted conception of the
work of Christ was banished for ever.
_Whereunto ye do well that ye take heed._ The idea of a volume of New
Testament Scriptures had not entered St. Peter's mind. He knows that
St. Paul's letters (iii. 15, 16) are read by some, who do not all
profit by the privilege; and his own letters he intends to be an
abiding admonition to the Churches. The need, too, of a record of
Christ's life and works, a gospel, must have begun to be felt. But yet
he points the converts to the ancient records of Israel as a guide to
direct their lives. They had heard the Gospel story from the lips of
himself and others. Thus they had the key to unlock what hitherto had
seemed hard to understand, and could study their prophetic volume with
a new and perfect light. This he means by "ye do well." Ye go to the
true source of guidance, drink of the fountain of true wisdom, and
gain strength and refreshment when it is much needed. Duly to take
heed of these records is to search out their lessons and labour after
that deeper sense which is enshrined beneath the word. Given as they
were at various times and in various fashions, and given to point on
to God's purposes in the future, these Scriptures must needs have been
dark to those who first received them, nor could the men whom God
chose to deliver them have been fully conscious of all they were meant
to declare as the ages rolled on and brought their fulfilment nearer.
Nor are they all luminous even yet, but they grow ever more so to
those who take heed.
_As unto a lamp shining in a dark place._ Spite of all the light we
can compass, the world will always be in one sense a dark place. It is
a world of beauty, full of the tokens of God's handiwork, the
indications of His love. But evil has also made an entrance; and the
trail of the serpent is evident in the sorrow, the disease, the
wickedness, that abound on every side. And problems continually
present themselves which even to the saints are hard to be solved.
Many a psalm records the conflict which has to be passed through ere
God's ways can be reconciled to men. We must go into His house, draw
near to Him, feel to the full His Fatherhood, ere our hearts can be
contented. Nay, the disquiet breaks out again and again. So God, in
His mercy, has provided His lamp for those who will use it; and to
those who take heed it furnishes ever new light. The history, the
prophecy, the devotion, the allegory, of the holy volume are all full
of illustrations of the firm purpose of redemption, of the eternal,
unchanging love of Jehovah, thwarted only by the perverseness of those
whom He is longing to save from their sins. And to call God's
revelation in His word a lamp is a striking and instructive figure.
It is something which you can take with you, and carry into the dark
places whither your lot may send you, and use its light just where and
when you need it. But its light must be fed by the constant oil of
diligent study, or its usefulness will not be found to the full.
And the truth is the same if we apply the lesson to nations and
Churches as it is for individuals. The records were given to a nation
chosen to keep the knowledge of God alive in the world. The word
spoken did not profit, as it was meant to do, because it was not mixed
with faith in them that heard it. And there is the same faith needed
still. The light of a lamp in a dark place shines but a little way;
but by the rays of the Divine lamp men are to walk, in faith that the
steps beyond will become clear in their turn. And thus alone will the
problems of life be really solved, the religious contentions, the
social difficulties, the trials of family life, the individual doubts
and fears: all are elements of darkness; all need to be illumined by
the lamp which God has provided. Oh that men would burnish it by
diligent heed, and keep its radiance at the full by constant seeking
thereunto!
_Until the day dawn, and the day-star arise in your hearts._ The day
has begun to dawn for those who will lift up their heads to its
breaking. The day-star from on high hath visited the earth in the
person of Christ, but the full day will not be till He returns again.
Yet His coming into the world was meant to lighten every man, and to
win all men to walk in His light. "I, if I be lifted up, will draw all
men unto Me," is His own promise. And in that decease of which He
spake with Moses and Elijah He has been lifted up. But He has left it
to them that love Him to lift Him up constantly before the eyes of
men, to exalt Him by their lives; and our lax performances make the
progress of His _drawing all men_, to halt. We fail to make due use of
the lamp which He has put ready to our hand, and which only needs to
be grasped. The perfect day will not come to us in this life, but He
gives to His faithful ones glimpses of the dawn. They learn the
presence of the Sun of righteousness, though as yet they see Him only
through the mists and darkness of life; and they are cheered with the
certainty of the coming day. And the daystar of the Spirit is kindled
in the hearts of those who ask Him to dwell there; and they are led
forward into greater and greater truth, into richer and fuller light.
And for the same end the Spirit is promised to the Church of Christ:
that she may be enabled having used the lamp first given with all
faithfulness, to open to men the ways of God more fully, and, amid the
changes of times and varying vicissitudes and needs of men and
nations, to prove that the only satisfaction to the soul is the
increasing knowledge of the oneness of God's purpose and eternity of
His love. To such a power she will be helped by giving heed to the
lamp in every dark place and seeking in its light the elucidation of
all hard questions.
_Knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of private
interpretation._ The Greek words need to be taken account of before we
can gather the true meaning of this clause. That which is translated
"is" is much more frequently rendered "comes to pass," and bears the
sense of "arises," "has its origin." "Interpretation" is the
translation of a word which occurs here only in the New Testament, and
implies the "loosing" of what is complicated, the "clearing" of what
is obscure. The lesson which the Apostle would give relates to the
right appreciation of the Old Testament Scriptures, which contain the
prophecy which he has called above "the lamp in a dark place." He
intends to say something which may incline men to follow its guidance.
The prophetic writings furnish us with illustrations how the problems
which arose in the lives of the men of old time, both about events
around them and also about the dispensations of Divine providence,
found their solution. Thus they furnish rules and principles for time
to come; and that men may be induced to confide in their guidance is
the object of St. Peter's words. He bids the converts know that these
unravellings and clearings of the ways of God are not men's private
interpretation of what they beheld. This was not the manner in which
they came to be known. They are not evolved out of human
consciousness, pondering on the facts of life and the ways of God, nor
are they the individual exposition of those whom God employed as His
prophets. They are messages and lessons which came from one and the
same impelling power, from one and the same illuminating influence,
even from God Himself, and so are uniform in spirit and teaching from
first to last; and He from whom and through whom they are given can
say by the mouth of the last of the prophetic body, "I am Jehovah; I
change not" (Mal. iii. 6).
Although the Apostle uses in this Epistle the word "Scriptures" (iii.
16) for the writings of New Testament teachers, it is not likely that
he in mind included them among the prophetic Scriptures of which he
here speaks. We, knowing the flood of light which the Gospels and
Epistles pour upon the Old Testament, can now apply his words to them,
fully perceiving that they are a true continuation of the Divine
enlightenment, another spring from the same heavenly fountain.
Those who would explain "interpretation" as the judgement which men
now exercise in the study and application of the words of Scripture
forget the force of the verb (γίνεται) "comes to pass," and
that the Apostle is exalting the source and origin of the words of
prophecy, that he may the more enforce his lesson, "Ye do well to take
heed to them."
_For no prophecy ever came by the will of man._ Prophecy makes known
what never could have entered into the mind or understanding of men,
nor were the prophetic words that have come down to us written because
men wished to publish views and imaginations of their own. Man is not
the source of prophecy. That lay above and beyond the human penmen.
Nay, men could not, had they so willed, have spoken of the things
there written for the enlightenment of the ages. These are deep
things, belonging to the foreknowledge of God alone, by whom His Son
was foreknown as the Lamb without spot before the foundation of the
world. Of this the book of prophecy tells from first to last: of the
seed of the woman to bruise the serpent's head; of the family from
which a seed should come in whom all the earth should be blessed; of
the rod to spring from the stem of Jesse; of the king who was to rule
in righteousness; of the time when the kingdom of the Lord's house
should be established on the top of the mountains, and all nations
should flow into it; of the day when all men should know the Lord from
the least to the greatest, when the earth should be full of the
knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. Such tidings came
not into the thoughts of men except as they were put there from the
Lord; and they tell of things yet to come that are beyond the grasp of
men unless they be spiritually-minded and enlightened. For not only
are the prophetic Scriptures God's special gift: the insight into
their full meaning comes also from Him. Beyond the physical sense it
is true, "The hearing ear and the seeing eye, the Lord is the Maker of
them both" (Prov. xx. 12).
_But men spake from God, being moved by the Holy Ghost._ The
Authorised Version translates a text which had, "_Holy_ men of God
spake as they were moved by the _Holy_ Ghost." And this repetition of
an adjective is after St. Peter's manner, though the oldest
manuscripts do not support it here. Compare the thrice-repeated
"righteous" in the notice of Lot in the next chapter (ii. 7, 8). And
the Authorised Version describes most truly the agents whom God
chooses. He will have none but holy men to be the heralds of His
truth. A Caiaphas may be constrained to utter His counsels, but as His
prophets God takes the holy among men. These can grasp more of His
teaching, and we receive more than we should through other channels.
By their zeal for holiness they are brought nearer unto God, and made
more receptive of the teaching of the Spirit, who Himself is holy. But
"men spake from God" conveys a true idea of prophecy. Even one who was
not holy could feel that the power given to him was not his own, nor
could he speak after his own will. "What the Lord saith unto me, that
must I speak," was the confession of Balaam, though his greed for gain
prompted him to the opposite. And there are many expressions in the
Old Testament which bear witness to the effective operation of God's
power, as when we read of the Spirit of the Lord coming mightily upon
those whom He had chosen to do His bidding. And the same lesson is to
be found in St. Peter's words here. "Being moved" is literally "being
carried." An impulse was given to them, and a power which was above
their own. This is betokened, too, when the Old Testament prophets
tell how the Spirit of the Lord carried them to this place or that,
where a revelation was to be imparted which they should publish in His
name. Thus were they moved by the Holy Ghost, and thus were they able
to speak from God.
Such is St. Peter's lesson on the nature and office of prophecy. It is
an illumination to which men could not have attained by any wisdom of
their own, nay could not have framed the wish to attain unto it. For
it lay hid among God's mysteries. It is imparted from the holy God to
holy men, as His mediators to the less spiritual in the world; it has
received abundant confirmation through the incarnation of the Son of
God, but yet it has many a lesson for mankind to ponder and seek to
comprehend. It is their wisdom who follow its guidance and bear it
with them as a lamp amid the dispensations of Providence, which still
are not all clear, and amid the darkness which will often surround
them while they live here. That men may be prompted to its use, God is
a God that hideth Himself, yet through it He will lead those who
follow its light along the road to immortality.
XXIII
_THE LORD KNOWETH HOW TO DELIVER_
"But there arose false prophets also among the people, as among
you also there shall be false teachers, who shall privily bring
in destructive heresies, denying even the Master that bought
them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction. And many shall
follow their lascivious doings; by reason of whom the way of the
truth shall be evil spoken of. And in covetousness shall they
with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose sentence now
from of old lingereth not, and their destruction slumbereth not.
For if God spared not angels when they sinned, but cast them down
to hell, and committed them to pits of darkness, to be reserved
unto judgement; and spared not the ancient world, but preserved
Noah with seven others, a preacher of righteousness, when He
brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly; and turning the
cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes condemned them with an
overthrow, having made them an example unto those that should
live ungodly; and delivered righteous Lot, sore distressed by the
lascivious life of the wicked (for that righteous man dwelling
among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed _his_ righteous soul
from day to day with _their_ lawless deeds): the Lord knoweth how
to deliver the godly out of temptation, and to keep the
unrighteous under punishment unto the day of judgement."--2 PETER
ii. 1-9.
This second chapter contains much more of a direct description of the
heretical teaching and practices from which the converts were in
danger, and is full of warning and comfort, both alike drawn from that
Old Testament prophecy to the light of which St. Peter has just been
urging them to take heed. The chapter has many features and much of
its language in common with the Epistle of St. Jude. But the opening
of the chapter seems a suitable place to call attention to a
difference of motive which is manifested in this Epistle and in that.
They resemble one another greatly in the illustrations which they have
in common, but St. Peter makes a twofold use of them: while showing
that the ungodly will assuredly be punished, he comforts the righteous
with the lesson that, be they ever so few, even as the eight who were
saved at the Deluge, or as Lot, with his diminished family, at the
overthrow of Sodom, the Lord knows how to deliver His servants out of
trials. Of this latter side of the prophetic picture St. Jude shows us
nothing. The evil-doings of the tempters must have waxed grosser in
his day, and he is only concerned to preach the certainty of their
condemnation. The unbelievers in the wilderness, the angels who
sinned, the Cities of the Plain, the error of Balaam, and the
overthrow of Korah are all cited in proof that the wicked shall not
escape; but he has no word about the deliverance of those whose souls
are tortured by the wicked doings of the sinners among whom it is
their lot to live.