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2 Peter 1:16-2:3 · Providence Baptist Church - Sermons

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I do hope you have a copy of God's Word with you this morning.
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If you will please take it out and turn to 2 Peter 1.
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This paper is commonly known as the 95 Theses.
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It was nailed to the church door at the Church of Wittenberg.
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But it was originally entitled, brace yourself for it,
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The Disputation on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences,
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in which Luther outlined 95 reasons why this practice of the Roman Catholic Church
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was unbiblical and therefore sinful.
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He arrived at the linchpin of his argument upon doing translation work in the book of Romans.
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He was troubled as an Augustinian monk, as he was being taught a gospel that was by works.
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He was very aware that he would never measure up to the standard that was put forth before him.
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He was honest and he was humble about the condition of his own heart.
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And so he was put to work translating the book of Romans,
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which I just find wonderfully, laughably providential.
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And he didn't make it very far into the book of Romans when he came to Romans 1,
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verse 16 and 17, where Paul says,
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The righteous shall live by faith.
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The righteous shall live by faith, not by indulgences or any other work, but by faith.
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It was Luther's intention to see Rome change its view on the matter.
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And we don't have time to cover the scope of that episode today.
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It's not why we're really gathered together, although it's a wonderful story.
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But his action on October 31st, 1517, was the spark that set Europe ablaze with Bible-saturated reformation.
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A major work of many of the reformers was to see the Bible translated into the language of the people.
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Until they did this important work, it was only available in limited print in Latin.
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And without a great deal of education, the common Christian was not a reader of Latin.
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And therefore, Rome had great power to shape European Christianity.
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They could teach what they wanted to teach and withhold what they didn't want to teach.
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The work of Bible translation was carried out by many men across the continent, right?
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We often attribute the Reformation to Luther himself, but God was at work all across the continent of Europe
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in the lives of many people and many churches, right?
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Men like John Wycliffe, who was a forerunner of the Reformation, had done this important work.
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Martin Luther, William Tyndale, Miles Coverdale, and many others.
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And we are indebted to men such as these.
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As we sat down to plan the preaching schedule for the rest of this year and noted that October 31st fell on a Sunday this year,
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we began to muse about what the reformers would think of American Christianity.
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Just imagine to them the preciousness of the Word of God.
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They were bringing it into the language of the people.
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By God's grand design, the press had been imprinted, had been invented some hundred years earlier.
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It was widely being used, so things could be printed and distributed.
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But even then, can you imagine how very precious it would be to own or even have access to a copy of the Scriptures in your own language,
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to be able to take it up and to read it?
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What would they think of us today?
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These men and women who fought bravely to bring the Bible to the masses.
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And let's be certain to recognize we are those masses.
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I will be quick to admit, I would likely have not been a reader of Latin.
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I'm not that smart.
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I just wouldn't have been in that category.
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I would have been one of those saying, oh, if I could just have the Word in my own language.
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What would they think of a people with such access to God's Word and so little biblical literacy?
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We have in our gathering this morning hundreds of copies of God's Word.
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There's a stack of them back there on the back table.
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In case you forgot yours, just go and pick one up.
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Every Sunday, there are copies left here.
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There's a stack of them on the sound booth rail back there.
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Right?
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Just left behind.
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Right?
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And we're forgetful.
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And I get it.
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Right?
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We can access other.
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You probably have another Bible at home.
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So you go, I'll pick that up when I'm back on the next week.
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But we treat it in our hearts the same way we often do in the physical form.
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We have so much access to a God who has spoken to us.
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He's revealed himself to us by his Word.
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And we're largely, relatively, just neglectful of it.
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So in brief this morning, again, we're pressing toward baptisms today.
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We want to have time for that.
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I don't want to keep you all day long.
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So join me in briefly looking at our text today from 2 Peter.
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I'll begin reading in verse 16.
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Before I do, beloved, let me remind you that this is God's Word to us.
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That's why I say this every time I preach.
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It was written for his glory and our good.
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So we would all do well to listen to it in order to believe its promises and obey its commands.
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Peter writes,
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For we do not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
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But we were eyewitnesses of his majesty.
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For when he received honor and glory from God the Father and the voice was born to him by the majestic glory,
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This is my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased.
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We ourselves heard this very voice born from heaven, for we were with him on the holy mountain.
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And we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed,
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To which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place,
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Until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.
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Knowing this first of all,
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That no prophecy of scripture comes from someone's own interpretation.
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For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man,
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But men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.
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But false prophets also arose among the people,
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Just as there will be false teachers among you,
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Who will secretly bring in destructive heresies,
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Even denying the master who bought them,
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Bringing upon themselves swift destruction.
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And many will follow their sensuality,
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And because of them the way of truth will be blasphemed.
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And in their greed they will exploit you with false words.
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Their condemnation from long ago is not idle,
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And their destruction is not asleep.
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Now this morning, I want to focus your attention on just one verse,
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Verse 19.
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But before we spend our time on this verse,
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Let's look at the larger context of what Peter is communicating here.
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The reason that we read all of those verses together.
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And verse 16 begins with the word,
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For.
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And any time we see that word,
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We need to back up a little bit to understand,
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What is the argument that he's progressing through in this case?
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Well, in this time,
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Peter has spent the lion's share of chapter 1,
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Speaking of the holiness that will accompany the life of a believer.
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Like, what does the life look like of one who has responded by faith to Jesus Christ?
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Notice in chapter 1, verse 3, the first half of that verse,
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He says,
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His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness.
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And he goes on to elaborate on the qualities of the Christian life.
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And he says in verse 12,
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Therefore, I intend always to remind you of these qualities.
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And then in verse 15,
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And I will make every effort so that after my departure,
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You may be able at any time to recall these things.
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This is all that leads us up to the fore at the beginning of verse 16.
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He's saying, right, the life that is in Christ by faith is going to produce fruit.
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Here's a list of that fruit, qualities, he calls them, in chapter 1.
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And I'm going to be sure you remember these qualities.
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Why?
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Because you want to be sure that you're in Christ, right?
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You want to be sure that you have, in fact, placed your faith in Him,
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that He's given to you the gift of the Spirit,
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who's helping you to walk in His ways.
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So, how is it that Peter will make every effort so that after my departure,
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You may be able at any time to recall these things?
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That's where his mind is as he goes on in verse 16 to say,
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For we did not follow cleverly devised myths,
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When we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
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But we were eyewitnesses of His majesty.
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For when He received honor and glory from God the Father,
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and the voice was born to Him by the majestic glory,
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This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.
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We ourselves heard this very voice born from heaven,
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for we were with Him on the holy mountain.
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What is he talking about?
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He's making this very clear argument from 15,
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I'm going to do everything I can to remind you of these qualities.
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And then he launches into this rant.
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Is he off topic?
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Absolutely not.
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What he's talking about is the transfiguration of Jesus Christ.
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The moment when Peter and James and John were taken up onto a mountain,
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and Jesus' deity was put on display.
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He was changed in form.
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They got to see this exalted God Christ.
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You can read about that further in Matthew chapter 17, Mark 9, and Luke 9.
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What an astounding thing this would have been to be a witness of.
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It was only Jesus' closest confidants, His closest disciples,
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that were even brought with Him up to this mountain.
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The rest of the apostles didn't get to see this moment in His life.
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Just Peter and James and John.
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Jesus' pre-crucifixion resurrection promises were confirmed to them in this moment.
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Right?
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This was declarative.
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Right?
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In many ways, Jesus had called Himself God.
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He had declared it outright.
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He had done things like healing and forgiveness of sin.
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But now they were seeing Him changed in this moment.
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And here in 2 Peter, Peter is suggesting that this is the prominent event for affirmation that Jesus is, in fact, the Christ.
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That His life was perfect.
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He never sinned.
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That His death was meaningfully sacrificial.
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He paid the eternal debt that is due us for our sin on the cross.
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That He had the power to be raised from the dead.
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This moment bolsters Jesus' earthly ministry and informs His heavenly ministry.
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This is an exceptional thing.
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If you were to ask me if I could step into any moment in history, I think this is the moment.
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I think I'd want to be on that mountain.
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I would want to see Jesus Christ transfigured.
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This moment of all the moments to be a witness of.
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But Peter does something most curious.
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Something that I just think ought to ignite your heart as you hold a copy of God's Word in your hands this morning.
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He says this.
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Remember, there's this confirmation of who Jesus is.
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This is the Christ.
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Right?
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He is God made flesh.
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They were witnesses of this.
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We were eyewitnesses of this, he says.
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And then in verse 19, he says,
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And we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed.
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We have a greater confidence that God's Word is God's Word.
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And it displays for us this Christ.
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That is incredible.
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God wrote us a book.
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That we can take up and we can read.
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And we can behold Him in it.
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Peter is saying,
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This is better than being on the mount of transfiguration.
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To birth in his people a confidence that Jesus is the Christ.
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This is what Peter is saying right here.
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Right?
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It's astounding.
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I can still remember the first moment that I read 2 Peter and this jumped off the page at me.
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It wasn't all that long ago.
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It was just some years ago.
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If you're at all like me, I often find myself kind of skimming the seconds and thirds of the epistles.
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This is a profound thing that he is doing.
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We have the prophetic word more fully confirmed.
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Now he's talking about the scripture of his day.
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We believe in the canonicity of the Bible.
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The 66 books.
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We don't have time to explain all that to you today.
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I think that he would also apply this to these future books that would be confirmed and put in the canon that we hold today.
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It's more fully confirmed.
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And because of that, you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.
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Can you just imagine being on the mount of transfiguration and not paying attention to what was happening?
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To being up there with these men and off picking flowers or looking at the shape of the clouds or enjoying the view from the top of the mountain.
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Right?
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The most important thing was happening right there.
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They paid attention.
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And he's saying, we have something more fully confirmed and you will do well to pay attention to it.
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Pay attention to the word.
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He goes on to defend the canonicity, the veracity of the scripture.
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Right?
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That the scripture that they held was in fact God's word.
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He says in verse 20, knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of scripture comes from someone's own interpretation.
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Right?
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Man is not its source.
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For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man.
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But men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.
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Men were used as the agents to pen the Bible.
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But they are not its ultimate author.
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Right?
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Men spoke from God.
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Paul writes in 2 Timothy chapter 3 and verse 16.
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All scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.
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Right?
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We often refer to the scriptures as being inspired.
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Meaning that God spoke into men who pinned the message down.
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But here you can see in 2 Timothy 3, 16, all scripture is expired.
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It's breathed out by God.
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And what Paul is doing there is he is emphasizing that God is its very source.
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It comes from him.
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It is his word.
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It is his word.
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And therefore, we would do well to pay attention to it.
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So how is it that Peter will make every effort so that after his departure, we will be able at any time to recall these things?
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That was verse 15.
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He will do so by giving his readers confidence in God's word.
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See the logical flow that he's making here?
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How is he going to do this?
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He's going to labor to give people confidence in his word.
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The things he has said will need to be remembered because the way of truth was and it will be perverted.
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So if we read into chapter 2, sometimes the chapter breaks don't serve us very well.
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I think this is one of those cases.
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He's talking about the canon.
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He's talking about the scriptures that they held written by these prophets.
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And he says, but false prophets also arose among the people.
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Back when the word was becoming the word in their day, even then there were false prophets, just as there will be false teachers among you.
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It's an age old problem that still exists today.
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There will be people who will be false teachers that will lead people astray.
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They will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the master who bought them, denying Christ himself.
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And I would suggest to you that anybody who's teaching a salvation that is by works is denying the master.
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Jesus' person and his work, this is what accomplishes the salvation of the church and not works.
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They bring upon themselves swift destruction and many will follow their sensuality.
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And because of them, the way of truth will be blasphemed.
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And in their greed, they will exploit you with false words.
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Their condemnation from long ago is not idle.
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And their destruction is not asleep.
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And I believe that Peter is intending to give to these Christians comfort that these men's deeds will not go unpunished.
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They will someday be held accountable for the things that they teach.
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And something I see in the church these days that troubles me is that we look at teachers who don't preach the word.
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They don't open it up and preach it.
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Or they take a snippet of a verse and then they walk away from it.
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That they don't really feed God's people when God's people gather.
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And we give them permission to do so because they have good intentions.
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Because they want people to come to faith in Christ.
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These people, with all of the sincerity and kindness I can muster in my heart, are misled at best.
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Men who stand up and declare to be pastors, to be preachers of God's word, who don't preach God's word, will be condemned for that activity.
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They will be judged for what it is they deliver to people.
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It is a frightful thing to preach.
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Even to a small congregation.
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Every Lord's Day that I preach, I tremble because I know I'll be held accountable for the things that I teach.
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Whether I'm rightly teaching you from the word or wrongly teaching you from the word.
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So there's been a problem and there will be a problem that it's going to get contorted.
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It's going to get twisted up, right?
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It's going to be used to say things that it doesn't say.
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People are going to isogete the text, read into the text what they want it to say instead of exegete it.
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What does the word actually say?
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What does it mean?
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It is what the people need.
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You may have heard the statement.
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The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
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If we truly love people, we're going to open up the word for them.
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We're going to teach them the word.
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We will do well to pay attention to it.
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So let's think a little bit more about verse 19 together.
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There's the context of what Peter is saying.
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Verse 19, which I've already read.
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Let me read it one more time.
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And we have the prophetic word, the scripture, more fully confirmed.
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To which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.
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I want to spend the next hour talking about this verse, but I won't.
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So to just give us a bit of an outline for it, we're going to use the lens of a Latin phrase because we are good reform people.
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And I love church history, so I have to use Latin from time to time.
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This Latin phrase first appeared in 1674 in a devotional book by Judocus van Laudenstein.
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Okay.
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See if you can write that one down.
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It's on the back of your bulletin if you care for it, but here's the Latin phrase, and I'll give it to you in English.
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Ecclesia reformata, semper reformanda, secundum verbe de.
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Ecclesia reformata, semper reformanda, secundum verbe de.
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The church is reformed and always being reformed according to the word of God.
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You'll often hear kind of the cry, the reformation cry, semper reformanda.
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You'll hear that pulled out.
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But this is the entirety of the phrase.
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It's the first time that this phrase appears in print at very least.
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The church is reformed and always being reformed according to the word of God.
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So we'll take that phrase as a brief outline to talk about and to think about this idea.
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What does it mean for us to do well, to pay attention to the scripture?
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In our age.
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So first, Ecclesia reformata.
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The church is reformed.
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Van Lodenschein would have been a very, had a very particular audience in mind when writing the devotional book that this phrase was found in.
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He would not have been suggesting that doctrine is to be figured out on the fly.
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But he would have been writing to the Dutch Reformed Church.
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This tradition was confessional and it held to the inspiration, authority, inerrancy, and sufficiency of the scripture.
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The church he is referring to was a church that had returned to the truth of the Bible for its form and its practice.
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Right?
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They were already doing well to pay attention.
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I think this is what he meant by that phrase.
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Ecclesia reformata.
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The church is reformed.
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It has left behind the religion of works.
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It has come back to the scripture.
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It has seen that salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.
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Beloved, it is good for us to be descendants of such people.
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We want to be careful, Reformation Day, not to venerate the reformers.
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Right?
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But it is good that our faith is set on their shoulders.
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It did not begin in 1674 or in 1517.
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But we are indebted to those people who faithfully handed down the truth to us.
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Right?
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God has been at work amongst his people to bring to us his word.
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Right?
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As we pick up the scripture, we ought to be firstly and foremostly thankful to God.
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Right?
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He has spoken and he's brought us his word.
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But we also ought to be thankful for the people that were used by him to bring it to us.
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Right?
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Men like William Tyndale, who ran all over Europe, hiding and avoiding being captured so that he could translate the New Testament and much of the Old Testament.
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In the English.
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Right?
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An incredible work.
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A work of God done by a man for our benefit.
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Men and women like Van Loddenstein were a pillar and buttress of the truth for God's glory and for our good.
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And I pray that we will be part of a people who are generationally minded.
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That our God will be praised in this place and among all peoples until our Lord returns.
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Like, are we going to pass that baton?
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Be faithful to the word.
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Carry it to the next generation.
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But here's the danger.
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A danger that the reformers knew well.
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A danger that Peter and Van Loddenstein knew.
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The church does not drift toward holiness.
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The church does not drift naturally toward the scripture.
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Right?
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The church does not naturally submit itself to the word.
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Right?
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It is a work.
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It's a thing we have to be actively doing together.
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We must pay attention.
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Which brings us to the next part of our phrase.
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Semper reformanda.
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Always being reformed.
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And I think what was meant, or at least should be, if it's not what Van Loddenstein meant,
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was and always in need of being reformed.
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Church is reformed and it is always in need of being reformed.
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And this does not mean that we're disregarding and throwing out the doctrines of the faith.
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The faith.
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Don't hear me saying that at all.
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But we should never think that we have arrived.
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We shouldn't think that we've got it all figured out.
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We shouldn't leave the scripture behind.
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Like, oh, read that book and I've learned from it.
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On to other books.
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We are not, notice the phrase, always reforming, but rather we are always being reformed.
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Which means an action that's happening to us.
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And it connotes a standard to which we are being changed.
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The church, the faithful church, is being acted upon by the spirit as we take up the word so that we would be changed to God's standard.
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We are to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place.
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Maybe more than we ever have before.
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But certainly it's always been true that we live in a dark place.
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You can step out, pull your phone out of your pocket right now, and find untruth everywhere.
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It is not a difficult thing to access.
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We have to pay attention to the lamp that's going to lead us through the darkness of this world.
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And we're to do this until the day dawns and the morning star rises in our hearts.
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In short, this is a beautiful language, but in short, he is talking about glorification.
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He's talking about what will happen when we reach the end of this life.
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Which means, do we ever stop paying attention?
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Absolutely not.
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We are to pay attention and to pay attention and to pay attention.
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Because until we're glorified, until we leave behind these sinful bodies, before we leave behind this world, we will be in a dark place and we will need a lamp to guide us through.
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So, beloved, let us not be so haughty to think that we have arrived.
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But what standard is that standard?
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We should test everything by the word and be willing to change our beliefs and practices if we find ourselves inconsistent with the word.
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Now, note carefully that I am saying inconsistent with the word, not inconsistent with the culture.
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Faithful Christians have never read the Bible through the lens of their culture, but have seen the Bible as a counter-cultural agent.
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It pushes against the wisdom of the world.
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It's not the natural thought pattern.
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And it's not the natural inclination for us to think the way the scripture would have us think.
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We must be in the word.
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And we must be in it regularly.
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And we must drink of it deeply.
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And we must meditate on it.
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And we must memorize it.
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We should be saturated with God's word.
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And beloved, if you are beloved, if God has loved you in Christ,
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why would we not love him in a way that compels us to know him in the way that he's shown himself to us,
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the way more fully confirmed the scripture?
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One of my favorite doctrines of the Bible is the clarity of scripture.
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We can know what this book says and what it means.
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I am grateful that when we approach the Bible with humility, by the power of the Spirit, we can know the will of God.
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Throughout the church's history, the vast majority of Christians have been very simple people.
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They have not been high-minded people.
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And I praise the Lord for the incredibly intelligent people that are part of the church.
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But generally speaking, this has not been the case.
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People through centuries have taken up the word, read it, understood it, lived faithful lives in accord with it.
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You don't have to be particularly brilliant to take the word and read.
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Beloved, we must not stop paying attention to this word.
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I think this is what the Reformers would want us to hear today.
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I think they would look at us in our wealth of word and go, what are you doing?
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It is everywhere.
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We don't have just one good English translation.
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We have lots of good English translations and some bad ones too.
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But there are lots of Bible around us.
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So much opportunity to know God by his word.
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We must not think that we have it all figured out.
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We must have our beliefs and our actions shaped by this word.
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We will do well to pay attention to it as a lamp shining in a dark place until the day dawns and the morning star rises in our hearts.
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Let's pray together.
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Let's pray together.