About this sermon
Peter insists that the apostles did not follow cleverly devised myths when they made known the power and coming of Christ; they were eyewitnesses of his majesty. On the holy mountain they heard the Father’s voice declare, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” The gospel is rooted in historical events, as Paul also shows in listing the witnesses of the risen Christ. At the transfiguration, with Moses and Elijah present, the Father bore authoritative testimony to his Son, and the apostles’ testimony rests on what they saw and heard.
Sermon transcript
Well, friends, please remain standing for the reading of God’s Word as we can continue our study of 2 Peter. This evening we are in 2 Peter, chapter 1, and I’ll focus on verses 16 through 18. I’ll read verses 16 through 21 to fill out the context a bit, but the sermon text for this evening is 1 Peter 1, verses 16 through 18. You’ll find that on page 1207 in your Pew Bible. Friends, let us hear God’s holy word. For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of His majesty. For when He received honor and glory from God the Father, and the voice was born to Him by the majestic glory, this is my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased.
We ourselves heard this very voice born from heaven, for we were with Him on the holy mountain. And we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed, 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, knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation, for no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God endures forever. Let’s pray for the Lord to bless the proclamation of His word this evening. Lord and Father in heaven, we thank you that you have spoken, that you have given to us clear revelation.
We thank you that in the Scriptures you reveal Christ our Savior, and we thank you that you give us the whole counsel of God in your holy word. We ask, Lord, that you would grant us the grace this evening to be attentive to your word as we consider this passage of Holy Scripture, and we pray that by your Spirit your word would once again find a lodging place in our souls. We pray that this word that we consider tonight would indeed impact us powerfully, and we pray that it would be used of you to further our sanctification and growth in grace. Be with us now, Lord. May your Spirit be present. Set a guard over my lips. Help me to speak forth only that which is faithful to your word. We pray these things in Jesus’ name, and all of God’s people said amen.
You may be seated. The title of my sermon this evening is, Eyewitnesses of the Lord’s Majesty, and I encourage you to be listening for the following words that are outlined in your sermon outline. The words gospel, history, apostle, eyewitness, transfiguration, and testimony. While dear friends, every so often an author or a scholar will come forward with a book or a theory that alleges to disprove or to reinterpret the gospel history about Jesus Christ as that history is recorded for us in the Bible. And just to give you some examples, way back in the 1960s, a man by the name of Hugh Seanfield, a Jewish scholar, wrote a book called The Passover Plot. And in that book, he claimed to offer a new interpretation of the life and death of Jesus, an interpretation which unsurprisingly denied essential truths of the gospel, such as the deity of Christ and the resurrection of Christ.
In more recent times, a number of years ago, Dan Brown’s popular novel The Da Vinci Code popularized some frankly bizarre way out conspiracy theories and ideas that obviously contradict the biblical picture of Jesus Christ. For example, in his book, and I read the book a number of years ago, in that book, he popularized the theory that Jesus was actually married to Mary Magdalene. In fact, in Brown’s book, one of the characters in the book claims that the early church did not believe in the deity of Christ until the Council of Nicaea affirmed that doctrine in 325 A.D. Now, of course, anyone with even a surface level acquaintance with the New Testament scriptures and with the early church fathers who wrote prior to the Nicene Council know that Mr. Brown’s claims are demonstrably false and that the early Christians most certainly did believe that Jesus Christ is divine.
Then there were claims made a number of years ago, maybe you remember these, claims alleging that the Jesus family tomb had been found in Jerusalem and thus that the bones of Jesus had been found, which obviously, if it were true, would have disproven the resurrection of Christ. But those claims, of course, again, were easily refuted. And of course, in recent years, the popular New Testament scholar and author, Dr. Bart Ehrman, a former evangelical Christian turned agnostic, in other words, an apostate from the Christian faith, has cranked out a whole bunch of books that seek to undermine confidence in the textual integrity of the New Testament, the historical reliability of the Gospels, the deity of Christ, and other Orthodox Christian beliefs. And just as there have been sound and Orthodox biblical scholars who have refuted the theories of writers like Hugh Shonfield and Dan Brown, so likewise, numerous conservative biblical scholars have taken Dr.
Ehrman to task and have offered sound and scholarly and biblical refutations to his skeptical theories. Beloved in Christ, there are many today, the point of this is that there are many today who would assert that the New Testament’s claims about the life and the miracles and the teachings and the death and the resurrection of Christ are nothing more than nice stories and clever myths. However, in our text for this Lord’s Day evening, the apostle Peter sets the record straight. He tells us in very plain terms that he and the other apostles, quote, did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. So let’s dive into our passage for this Lord’s Day evening. Beginning at verse 16 of our passage, which I will again read, Peter writes, for we did not follow cleverly devised myths.
Now let me pause there. When he says we, he means we apostles. He’s speaking of himself and the other apostles, and the apostles were appointed by Christ as eyewitnesses of his ministry and especially of his resurrection from the dead. We did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. My friends, the gospel story about Jesus Christ is rooted in actual historical facts, not cleverly devised myths. This is what we learn here in verse 16. The gospel story about the Lord Jesus Christ is rooted in actual historical facts and realities, not rooted in cleverly devised myths. The term in the Greek that Peter uses, which is translated here as myth, is the Greek term muthois. That’s the word from which we derive the word myth.
And this phrase, cleverly devised myths, as it’s translated here in the English Standard Version, is translated similarly in other versions. For example, the New American Standard Version translates it as cleverly devised tales. The King James and New King James Versions translated as cunningly devised fables, and the New International Version translates it as cleverly invented stories. But you get the point. Peter is saying this is not what we presented to you, cleverly devised myths, but instead we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. My friends, the good news of Jesus Christ is not a mere story, nor a metaphor, nor a myth, nor simply a symbolic fantasy about the power of hope arising from the ashes of despair or some other such fuzzy-headed, flowery-sounding, sentimental nonsense. No dear ones, the good news of Jesus is based upon and rooted in supernatural events performed by a supernatural person, namely Jesus, in real space-time history.
We must always remember, children, what is history? History is his story. God is the one who orchestrates all of history by his sovereign decree and divine providence. The Gospel is the very truth of God, rooted in actual events of history, events which God has sovereignly decreed and has providentially ordered for his glory and for the salvation of his people. In other words, friends, biblical Christianity is an historical faith. There are some religions in the world that if the historical events behind those religions were taken away, the teachings would still remain. For example, if the Buddha had not in fact actually existed, then Buddhism could still exist as a religion because its principles and its teachings are not dependent upon the historicity of the person of Buddha. That cannot be said about Christianity. True biblical Christianity is not simply a moral story.
It’s not simply morality or ethics. It is the redemptive story that is rooted in the history revealed in the Word of God. Now let me just remind us of some of the context here of this passage that lies in the background of this passage. We need to ask ourselves, why does Peter bring this matter up? In fact, why does he do so at this particular point in his letter? That’s an important interpretive question that we need to ask if we’re going to be responsible readers of the Scriptures. We always need to ask, you know, why is the author here saying what he says when he says it and what’s the purpose of this? Well we need to remember that one of the major reasons why the Apostle Peter wrote this letter, was to refute a heresy that was threatening the Christians to whom he was writing and to fortify these believers against the false teaching of these particular heretics.
This was a version of heresy known as antinomianism, a version, a heretical teaching that basically denied the implications of Christ’s lordship in the realm of ethics and morality. In any case, perhaps the false teachers that Peter is concerned to refute had claimed that the Christian gospel was based upon such myths. Or perhaps Peter is contrasting the true historically rooted reality-based gospel that he and the other Apostles preached, maybe he’s contrasting that with the clever myths that were being propagated by the false teachers that he was seeking to refute. Whichever the case may be, what we learn here in this passage and what we see in other passages of scripture when we compare scripture with scripture is the importance of eyewitness testimony to the apostolic church. The Apostles were appointed by Christ as eyewitnesses and Peter is not the only apostle or the only New Testament writer who appeals to eyewitness testimony.
Those other passages in the New Testament scriptures indicate that the gospel, the Christian gospel is attested to and confirmed by the testimony of multiple eyewitnesses to the life, to the miracles, to the teaching, to the death and to the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. And I just want to, as we compare scripture with scripture, I want to take us to a number of passages that emphasize the importance of eyewitness testimony to the Apostles and to the early church. Let’s turn, for example, to the Gospel of Luke. The very beginning of Luke’s Gospel, remember Luke was very likely authored by Dr. Luke, Luke the physician who was a traveling companion to the Apostle Paul. Luke no doubt got much of his information from the Apostle Paul and other apostles as well. When he opens his Gospel with these words, as he writes under the guidance and inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Luke writes this, inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us.
Let me just pause there and point out that when Luke wrote this Gospel, whenever it happened to have been, and I believe that most if not all of the writings of the New Testament were written before 70 AD, but that’s another discussion for another time. In any case, Luke says many, at the point when he’s writing this Gospel, he says many have undertaken to write a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us, the things that he records, many have sought to record at this point. Just as those who, notice verse two, just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers or servants of the word have delivered them to us, it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught.
He wants to instill certainty, not just mere probability. Again, hearkening back to our morning instruction lesson this morning on apologetics, we don’t just prove that the God of the Bible probably exists, but we have reason to believe that it is certain. We have confidence because our faith is built upon and grounded in the very word of God. But the point here is that Luke has done his homework, and he has consulted with eyewitnesses, those who knew Jesus personally, those who had seen Jesus perform miracles. The things recorded in Luke’s Gospel were things that he had studied and that he had received in testimony by those who were eyewitnesses. Luke who also wrote the book of Acts begins the book of Acts similarly. I have you turn to Acts chapter one and let me read the first several verses of Acts chapter one.
He says at the beginning of Acts chapter one, verse one, in the first book, O Theophilus, that would be the Gospel of Luke, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach until the day when he was taken up after he had given commands through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. And then notice verse three of Acts chapter one, he, Jesus, the resurrected Jesus, he did what? He presented himself alive to them after his suffering by many proofs appearing to them during 40 days and speaking about the kingdom of God. The resurrected Jesus appeared to multiple eyewitnesses after his resurrection from the dead over a period of 40 days. And so again, Luke is appealing to the importance of eyewitnesses to the early apostolic church. Or consider the apostle Paul and what he writes in first Corinthians chapter 15.
Let me just read verses three through eight of first Corinthians chapter 15 where Paul reviews the basics of the Gospel and in this chapter where he defends the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead, he says this beginning in verse three of first Corinthians 15, for I deliver to you, I passed on to you as of first importance what I also received that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures. Notice that the scriptures are the ultimate authority. That he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the 12, that would be the other apostles, then he appeared to more than 500 brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all of the apostles.
Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me, for I am the least of the apostles unworthy to be called an apostle because I persecuted the church of God. In other words, the resurrected Lord Jesus Christ after his resurrection appeared to more than 500 eyewitnesses. And when Paul wrote this, this epistle, many of those eyewitnesses, many of those 500 were still alive, though he says some have fallen asleep, some have died or perhaps been martyred or what have you. But again, we see the importance here of eyewitness testimony to the truths that are revealed to us in the gospel of Jesus Christ. The apostle John also emphasizes this in John chapter 20 verses 30 to 31. John chapter 20 verses 30 and 31, we read these words. It says, now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book.
In other words, they were eyewitnesses to the many other signs and wonders and miracles that Jesus performed, which confirmed and authenticated his identity as the Son of God and the promised Messiah. But he goes on to say, but these are written, these which he has recorded in his gospel, These are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. Again, Jesus did many signs and wonders and miracles in the presence of his disciples. Again, eyewitness testimony. The final passage I want us to look at as I try to drive this point home is 1 John chapter 1 verses 1 to 3. Again, the apostle John writes this about the Lord Jesus. That which was from the beginning, there he is referring to Jesus, the Logos, the divine word who was in the beginning with the Father.
That which was from the beginning, which we, we apostles have what? Which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and have touched with our hands. That phrase we’ve touched with our hands indicates we’ve investigated this carefully concerning the word of life. That’s Jesus, for he is the one who gives us life eternal. He says the life was made manifest and we have seen it and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life which was with the Father and was made manifest to us. That which we have seen and heard, we proclaim also to you so that you too may have fellowship with us and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. So again, we see the importance and significance of eyewitness testimony, not only in our passage for this Lord’s Day evening, but many other passages of the New Testament which indicate that our faith is rooted not in fantasy, not in mythology, but is rooted in God’s providence and providentially ordered history and revealed and seen by multiple eyewitnesses.
But getting back to our passage for this evening, what were Peter and the other apostles eyewitnesses of? Well, he says, for we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the what? The power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. What were the apostles such as Peter eyewitnesses of? They were eyewitnesses of the power and the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. They saw the power of Jesus in his miracles. They saw Jesus as he healed the sick, as he raised the dead, as he gave sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, speech to the dumb. They saw Jesus calm the storm, speak to the storm and automatically show his sovereign divine control over nature. They saw the Lord Jesus multiply the loaves and the fishes.
They saw the Lord Jesus cast out demons showing his power and sovereignty and conquest of the demonic realm and so forth. But then he also says that they were eyewitnesses of the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now the word here in the Greek that is translated as coming in verse 16 is the Greek word perusin, which is from perusia. Now the term perusia in the Greek New Testament usually refers to the second coming or the advent of our Lord Jesus Christ. And obviously Peter and the apostles had not been eyewitnesses to the Lord’s second coming because that is an event of redemptive history that has not yet occurred. And yet a foretaste of that event has occurred. It occurred in the transfiguration of Christ as we will see. So what do we learn from these observations of what the apostles such as Peter were eyewitnesses of?
Well we see here first of all that the apostles clearly taught the doctrine of Christ’s second coming and by implication everything that is associated with that doctrine including the general resurrection of the dead, the final judgment of men and of angels, the ushering in of the new heavens and the new earth wherein righteousness dwells, heaven and hell and so forth. And the transfiguration event that Peter speaks to in this passage in which we read of earlier in the service this evening was a preview. It was an eschatological preview, a foretaste and an anticipation of our Lord’s glorious future advent. So again Peter says we did not follow cleverly devised myths but when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty and then immediately he goes on to speak of the transfiguration event.
He says in verse 17, for when he, Jesus, received honor and glory from God the Father and the voice was born to him by the majestic glory, this is my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased, we ourselves heard this very voice born from heaven for we were with him on the holy mountain, the mountain where Jesus was supernaturally transfigured before them. You know the scene, you recall the scene. Jesus’ divinity was veiled behind his humanity but on the mount of transfiguration his divine nature, the divine luminosity if you will shone through his human nature and so they saw him in his glory and in that glory was a foretaste of the glory that will be experienced by believers at our Lord’s second coming, at the second advent. Dear listener, let me ask you, do you believe in this biblical historical Lord Jesus Christ, the one attested to by apostolic eyewitness testimony, the beloved Son of God the Father who bore divine testimony to his Son on the mount of transfiguration?
Is your Jesus the real Jesus of scripture and history or is your Jesus a false Jesus of heresy and mythology and are you ready for his parousia, his second coming? You know there are some skeptical scholars out there who try to drive a wedge between what they call the Jesus of history and the Christ of faith because studying the scriptures from a rationalistic and naturalistic world view, an enlightenment world view, they go to the Bible assuming that miracles are, that we live in a closed universe and that miracles are impossible and so they have to explain away the miracles that are ascribed to the Lord Jesus and so they would say well the miracle stories they were added by the church later on as the church turned the Jesus of history into the Christ of faith but friends that is a false dichotomy, that is a false view, that is a reading into the scriptures something that isn’t there.
The scriptures intend for us to understand that Jesus of Nazareth was indeed a unique person, a supernatural person, the God man who performed literal miracles. We do not live in a closed universe, a naturalistic universe where there is no God or at least where God does not intervene in redemption and grace. No, we live in a universe that is controlled by God, governed by God. Yes there are what we call natural laws that seem to operate but those natural laws are simply God’s ordinary way of running things. That’s God’s ordinary providence and by the way God is just as much involved in the rising and setting of the sun every day and in natural processes as he is in supernatural events such as the resurrection of Jesus and in this case the transfiguration of our Lord Jesus Christ.
The point here is that the Jesus of history is the Christ of faith. Jesus is the supernatural divine son of God incarnate, the word made flesh, conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, miracle working, the miracle working son of God and Messiah who died on the cross as an atoning sacrifice for sin and who physically and bodily rose from the dead, appearing to multiple eyewitnesses and who ascended in the presence of his apostles to the Father’s right hand and who will return one day in glory for all to see. This is the real Jesus. The real Jesus of history is the Jesus of the Bible and that is the only Jesus who can save you from your sins. The rationalistic Jesus of the higher critics and liberal theology cannot save you for that Jesus is a false Jesus.
That Jesus is actually the mythological Jesus. The real Jesus is the Jesus of the word, the Jesus revealed in scripture and you can trust in him, you can rest in him for he is real and praise God he is alive, risen from the dead, reigning at the Father’s right hand, interceding for you and for me dear brother and sister in Christ. And so we have this apostolic eyewitness testimony but this leads me to the final point I want to make here. We see here in verses 17 through 18 where Peter recounts the miraculous event of the transfiguration. We see here confirmation of Peter’s apostolic eyewitness testimony. In the transfiguration we have confirmation of Peter’s apostolic eyewitness testimony. For Peter saw Jesus in his transfigured state along with James and John. It’s interesting isn’t it that Jesus transfigured himself on the holy mountain of transfiguration not just privately to Peter but there were three witnesses.
The scriptures tell us that every fact is established by the testimony of two or three witnesses. Well we had three witnesses to the transfiguration miracle. We had Peter, James, and John. And here is what Peter says as he recounts that event. He says in verse 17, for when he, Jesus, received honor and glory from God the Father and the voice was born to him by the majestic glory. Now think about it. Peter, James, and John, what do they hear on the mount of transfiguration? They hear God the Father speaking audibly. Can you think of another mountain in the scriptures where God speaks audibly to his people? Think of Mount Sinai, right? God spoke all these words. I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the house of slavery and so forth. Well God the Father speaks his authoritative word and here on the mount of transfiguration he bears testimony to his son.
He says this is my beloved son. Now there were a couple other people on the holy mountain with Jesus. Do you remember? Who else was with Jesus on the mount of transfiguration? There was Moses and Elijah. Moses representing the law, the Torah. Elijah representing the prophets. But notice the Father says this is my beloved son. Moses is not the divine son of God. Elijah is not the divine son of God. This one, Jesus, this is my beloved son with whom I am well pleased. And by the way observe one of the things we learn here in verse 17 is that Jesus Christ is distinguished from God the Father. Well all three persons of the Trinity share fully in the one divine essence, the one divine substance or being. There is a distinction within the Godhead between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
And you may roll your eyes and say, well pastor we know that. We’re well catechized orthodox Presbyterians and it’s good that you know that. But there are some folks out there who claim to be Christian who even believe that Jesus is God who would deny that distinction between the Father and the Son. There are Unitarian modalist sects such as the Jesus only Pentecostals called United Pentecostals who teach that sometimes God shows up as the Father, other times as the Son Jesus, and other times as the Spirit. But how can that theology be correct if the Father is speaking of and speaking to his Son as he does clearly in this passage? The same Bible that affirms the full deity of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ also affirms that there are distinctions within the one Godhead including the distinction between God the Father and Jesus Christ the Son.
So if you’re ever in a conversation with a Jesus only Pentecostal or some other Unitarian this is a good passage to take them to and to discuss with them. Notice also that Christ is declared by God the Father to be the beloved Son of God in whom the Father is well pleased and that’s so significant. Why does the Father say that of his Son? He identifies and bears testimony to his Son but then he says of his Son this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. Oh dear ones it is vital to understand that God will only be well pleased with us sinners if we are united by his grace through faith to his beloved Son Jesus Christ our Lord in whom he is well pleased. If you are in Christ God is well pleased with you not because you’re sinless not because you’re perfect not because you’re holy sanctified but because you are in the Son Jesus and he sees you in Christ and it is in Christ that he is it is in Christ that he is well pleased it is in Christ that you are beloved.
It is only in and through this beloved one that we sinners are redeemed from our sins and made right with our maker. Again dear listener are you in the Father’s beloved Son? Have you trusted him as your very own Savior from sin? So as we close our time in the word this evening let us behold the Apostles testimony as it is recorded in verse 18 where he continues recounting the transfiguration Peter goes on to say we ourselves we in this case are the Apostles Peter as well as James and John we ourselves heard this very voice born from heaven for we were with him on the holy mountain. Not only were Peter and his apostolic companions on the mount of transfiguration James and John not only were they eyewitnesses to the events that took place on the mount of transfiguration they were also ear witnesses they saw him with their eyes they heard with their ears.
Oh praise God for the glory of our Savior which was manifested on that holy mount and praise God for the apostolic eyewitness testimony to this event that the Holy Spirit caused to be preserved for us in this passage of God’s word. This is so faith strengthening and faith confirming. But as we will learn in future weeks when we consider the rest of this passage as immensely glorious as the event of our Lord’s transfiguration was and as faith strengthening as the Apostles eyewitness testimony to this event is let us remember beloved that our faith is built on the truth of God’s word that word which we would do well to pay close attention to as to a light shining in a dark place and so Peter goes on to write at the end of this passage and we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed 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 knowing this first of all that no prophecy of scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation for no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.
We have in the word of God the very speech of God. Let us hear the word. Let us embrace it by faith. Let us build our lives and our faith and our testimony upon it. Amen. Let us pray. Our gracious Lord and Father in heaven how we thank you and praise you that our faith in Jesus is not a blind faith. It is not an irrational faith. It is not a faith that is contrary to reason. We thank you Lord that you have given us an historical faith a faith that is grounded and rooted in your mighty works of salvation in history. Lord we pray that you would equip us to share this good news with others and to bear faithful testimony to the apostles eye witness testimony as recorded in your inerrant infallible word.
Be with us now Lord help us to take these truths to heart strengthen and deepen our faith and equip us to be followers of Jesus faithfully in the week ahead. We pray these things in Jesus name and all of God’s people said amen. As we close our time tonight let’s rise and we’ll sing together number 285 hail thou once despised Jesus.
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