Remember & Pay Attention
2 Peter 1:12-21
Main Idea: We must remember God’s grace and pay attention to God’s Word until Christ’s promised return.
I. Remembering God’s Grace (1:12-15)
Since God has “granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness” (1:3), Peter writes to “remind” us of these qualities that are ours in Christ. Though we “know them and are established in the truth,” we are prone to forget (cf. 1:9; Deut. 5:15; 16:3; 1 Cor. 15:1; 2 Tim. 2:8)
Peter’s urgency in this reminder is connected to his impending death (1:13-14; cf. Jn. 21:18-19). Finishing our race well and “confirming our calling and election” (1:10) means we must return and hold fast to the things we have already learned (cf. 2:20). Peter’s reminders are to ‘stir us up’ from any slumbers of indifference or tendencies to drift.
“The business of the church and of preaching is not to present us with new and interesting ideas, it is rather to go on reminding us of certain fundamental and eternal truths… the primary business of the Christian church and of her message and her preaching is not to indulge in vague general statements. It is to repeat the centralities of the Christian Gospel, to remind men and women of the truth of God as it is in Christ Jesus. The world is more liable to forget this than anything else. The world is interested in the general situation, politics, economics, social conditions, the possibilities of another war, and other similar things. The world, therefore, rather delights in these vague general statements that never lead to anything. But the business of the Christian church is constantly to remind men and women of certain things which they constantly tend to forget.”
~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Expository Sermons on 2 Peter
II. Standing Firm in the Grace of God (5:5b-14)
False teachers were claiming that Peter was devising or following “myths” regarding the “power and (second) coming” of Christ (cf. 3:3-4). False teaching about the return of Christ was a persistent issue in the early church (cf. 2 Tim. 2:18), and these false teachers denied Christ’s promised return in glory to “judge the living and the dead.”
To combat this false teaching, Peter refers back to the transfiguration of Christ (cf. Mk. 9:2-13). He draws attention to this moment for at least three reasons:
The transfiguration prefigures and anticipates the promised, glorious return of Christ (cf. Mk. 8:38)
Peter, James, and John were “eyewitnesses of his [Jesus’] majesty,” not receiving information second-hand
The transfiguration is the fulfillment of multiple OT Scriptures (cf. Deut. 18:15; Ps. 2:7, Isa. 42:1); it is “the Bible on display”
Peter is indicating to the recipients of this letter that we can listen to him because he has listened to Jesus: “this is my beloved Son; listen to him.” (Mk. 9:7)
III. Paying Attention to God’s Word (1:19-21)
We have the “prophetic word more fully confirmed” because of the finished work of Jesus Christ. Since he is the fulfillment and the center of all Scripture (cf. John 5:39; Lk. 24:44; 1 Pet. 1:11), we “do well to pay attention” to the Word of God.
Peter gives two pictures for the role of the Word of God in our lives:
A lamp shining in a dark place (cf. Ps. 119:105)
The morning star rising in our hearts, when the day dawns (cf. Num. 24:17; Rev. 22:16)
Until that glorious day arrives, Peter reminds us that “no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation,” meaning that the Word of God cannot be interpreted however we desire. This is the activity and impulse of the false teachers Peter is combatting (cf. Jer. 14:14).
“Today, Western culture is dominated by expressive individualism, the idea that we are defined by our inner feelings, that our relationships with others place no natural or necessary obligations upon us, and that we can pick and choose them as they serve our emotional needs. This idea plays into the general cultural assertion of individual autonomy and rejection of external authority — or at least of traditional external authority — that requires some sacrifice of ourselves for others. Whether it is a child rebelling against the parent or the individual rebelling against the sex of his or her own body, today autonomy and personal desire are king; and these press against anything from outside that tells us who we are, what we should believe, or how we should live.”
~ Carl Trueman, The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self
Instead, the Scriptures have come about because “men spoke from God, as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit” (1:21). We must pay attention to the Scriptures because they are the very words of God for the people of God to remember until the day Christ returns.
“The reason we may not fill the words of Scripture with our ideas is that God intends that they carry his ideas. The meaning of Scripture is not like putty that we can mold according to our desires. It is the work of the Holy Spirit and carries a solid, firm, divine intention. The glorious truth of this verse is that in Scripture God has spoken, and not merely man, and therefore our aim must be to hear God’s meaning, not merely our own.”
~ John Piper, “Men Moved by the Holy Spirit Spoke From God”
2 Corinthians 4:4–6: “… the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”
