Verse 16. “For we have not followed cunningly, devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eye witnesses of his majesty.” The Jews’ idea of the kingdom was the Messiah coming in glory and majesty and power, and their foes all cast out, but the Lord. Jesus had not come in that way, and so they rejected Him, and, as far as they were concerned, He was dead and buried and gone up into glory. “But,” says Peter, “we have actually seen that very kingdom of the Lord, been an eye witness of his majesty.” Luke 9 gives us the scene to which Peter alludes. In that chapter the Lord had been unfolding to the disciples the truth of His rejection. “I am going to suffer and to be cast out,” He says, “and he who follows me, must expect to share the same fate.” But He is coming back again with three-fold glory. His glory as Son of God which He had from all eternity, His glory as the Messiah King of the Jews—and His glory as Son of Man, according to the 8th Psalm. Then after telling His disciples of His rejection He says, “There be some standing here which shall not taste of death till they see the kingdom of God,” and He shows to them on the mount of transfiguration a little miniature picture of the kingdom, and it is to this Peter alludes in this Epistle. He had seen this wonderful picture, the Messiah, Moses the lawgiver, and Elias the reformer on that mount, and his heart was full. “Oh,” he said, “let us perpetuate this scene.” That was the thought in his mind, but that was putting the Messiah the lawgiver, and the reformer on the same level, and God could not have that, and the voice comes as Peter says, “from the excellent glory.” “This is my beloved Son, hear him, and they feared as they (Moses and Elias) entered into the cloud,” because the cloud was the immediate symbol of the presence of God.
The picture was only a momentary thing, but it was a perfect picture of the coming glory.
There was the lesson to Peter of the personal glory of the Son, but likewise the introduction to his mind of the heavenly, as well as the earthly side of the kingdom. Moses and Elias are a figure of the heavenly side; Moses had died, and Elias had gone up without death, lust as it will be when the Lord comes for His people; He will raise those who have died, and will take up without dying those who are alive. Peter, James and John are a picture of those in earth, who though they see His glory, yet are in the earth all the time.
Peter had seen this picture of the coming kingdom, and he sweetly confirms the faith of the Jewish believers by putting them in mind of what he had seen.
Verse 19. Prophecy always relates to the earth. It is the future dealing of God with the earth when He sweeps the scene of all that is ungodly and prepares it for the reign of the Lord Jesus Christ. But the Church is a heavenly thing, does not belong to earth at all, and Peter says you do well to take heed to prophecy, because if you look into prophecy it will tell you that the world through which you are passing is going to be judged, and therefore, he says, by the light of this, you will go through the world as through a judged scene without being mixed up with it at all.
What I find given in Scripture is, that the Lord reigns over the earth, but sets the earth right first, and therefore I find I cannot.do without prophecy.
Prophecy is a very good thing because it tells me what God is going to do with the earth, sweep the whole scene with the besom of destruction and fit it for Christ; but to have prophecy before our hearts is the great mistake, because prophecy is not Christ and nothing does for the heart but Christ.
The Old Testament prophecies did not give what Peter gives now, “till the day dawn and the day star arise in your hearts.” I do not think the apostle means till Christ arise as “Sun of righteousness with healing in his wing” as Malachi puts it. That is the day of judgment, not the gospel, as many say. The day is not come yet, but let me ask you, Has the day dawned in your heart yet? Do you not belong to the day? Yes, of course you do; the day has dawned in your heart, the first light, and along with that, the morning star, Christ Himself: the object of the saint in heavenly glory. It is Peter bringing in for a moment the coming of the Lord. He says, as it were, Prophecy is all very well, but the Lord Himself is coming; that is the thing for your hearts. He is “the root and the offspring of David” for the Jew. He is the “bright morning star” for our hearts. As He says to the remnant in Thyatira, to the overcomer, “I will give him the morning star.” That is, for the overcomer it is heavenly joy with Christ above, before the kingdom comes. This is what you and I are looking for now, the day having dawned in our hearts, we know that our portion is with Christ up there, and we know that before He comes to judge by-and-bye, He is to come for us to be with Him forever. We never expect a single event to take place before the Lord comes for us; we do not wait for anything but the morning star, the coming of the Lord. He is to come for His people, and this is to be the pole star of the saint’s life.
Verse 20. “Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the Scripture is of any private interpretation.” We must not limit Scripture. The value of Scripture is this, it is all connected with Christ, and prophecy has not its full scope, till everything has been brought in that connects it with Christ in His coming kingdom and glory.
Those who are looking for the fulfillment of prophecy before the Lord comes for us, miss the joy of waiting for Christ. They see some close similarity between some prophecy and some event, but they do not know that it is to watch for the bright and morning star.
When the Lord has taken us out of the scene, what will it be? Every prophecy of Scripture will be fulfilled, and when He gets His right place, by-and-bye, you and I will be by His side reigning with Him over this earth where He died for us, where His precious blood was shed for us. What a blessed thing for us to know Him now, to be true to Him now, in this scene, knowing that the time is soon coming when He shall have His rightful place on this earth again; but before that day comes He will have come first for us and have taken us up to be with Himself in the Father’s house, and this is what we look for, and therefore I say that our portion is the best, for though prophecy is good, Christ Himself is better, and Christ Himself is our portion.
The Lord give us to be waiting and watching for Him who is the bright and morning star. In the two following chapters of this Epistle, we have the apostle directing our attention,—the attention of all believers to two great points; first, unsound doctrine coupled with wicked practices, secondly, to the rapid growth of infidelity and scoffing, which we see all round about us in the present day.
If I had any doubt about the truth of Scripture, I should have that doubt removed by reading the second Epistle of Peter, because we have all round about us now, the very thing which the Spirit of God warns us here about.
“Denying the Lord that bought them,” that is, denying the claims of Christ, who is the Lord that bought them. This must not be confused with the thought of redemption, because redemption and purchase are very different. Every child of God is redeemed, every man is not redeemed, but every man is bought. Just as Matthew 13 says, that He bought the field, because of the treasure hid in it, and explains too that the field is the world. By His death Christ, as man, has obtained authority over every man.
Thus Christ is the master of all, the “Despot.” The figure is taken from a man going into the slave market and buying slaves. Thus too, Peter when speaking in Acts 10 says, “He is Lord of all,” and Paul in 1 Cor. 11 Says, “The head of every man is Christ.” So here Peter says He is “the Lord that bought them.” If I go into the slave market and buy a slave, my purchase only makes the slave change masters. Redemption knocks the shackles off the slave, and leaves him free. Purchase perpetuates bondage, redemption brings in perfect freedom.
Verse 2. Alas, we know well that what Peter says will take place has been fully enacted in Christendom, a throwing off of the claims of Christ even by those who profess His name and the way of truth; evil spoken of by those outside, because of the evil ways of those who profess to know the Lord.
Verse 3. Here he lays bare to the core ecclesiastical pretensions. Babylon sells the souls of men. It is a solemn thing to be connected practically with such a state of things.
Then he cites the dealings of God in bye-gone years, and shows what the Lord will yet do. Here, verse 4, is a very remarkable statement about the angels. The connection is plain between this verse, and Jude 6,6And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day. (Jude 6) but the contrast is striking. Peter says, “the angels that sinned,” Jude says, they left “their first estate.” Peter speaks of self-will; Jude speaks of apostacy; for Jude is describing the terrible corruption in the church, out of which the saint of God is to pick his way.
It is important to see what apostacy is. It is leaving the place in which God has put you. That is what Adam did. He was an apostate, and there is the difference between Adam and Christ. What was apostacy in Adam, was perfect grace in Christ. Adam’s was self-will and disobedience, and in Christ it was perfect obedience and doing the will of God His Father, He humbled Himself, and God exalted Him, and to you and me the apostle says by the Spirit of God, “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.”