I have stepped on more toys this past year than in the previous decade: little legos, matchbox cars, etc. The lights are out, I’m on my way to bed and I just need to cross the living room to lock the front door. “I know this room like the back of my hand,” I say to myself, “I don’t need to turn on a light.” A few moments later, I’m wincing in pain and wishing I hadn’t been so confident.
Peter says that we — even Christians — are walking around in the dark. And we would do well to drop our confidence and turn on a light:
Moreover, we have very strong confidence in the prophesies, to which you would do well to pay attention, like you would to a lamp shining in the darkness, until the day breaks the morning star rises in your hearts. (2 Peter 1:19)
Some guys had been saying that Jesus wasn’t coming back — you can live however you want because everything’s just going to keep on going on as it has for countless thousands of years. Worse, people were believing them. Peter, one of the last living apostles, is likely on death row at this point and sees the clock ticking down for his own life.
He’s just finished telling them he and his fellow apostles weren’t following cleverly invented stories when they spoke about the powerful future coming of Jesus Christ — they were eyewitnesses of His majesty. They saw the transfiguration, a vision of Jesus being chosen and appointed by God as the coming King and Judge.
Now he turns his attention to something he places even more confidence in than his own eyes: the scriptures. Specifically, he’s probably referring to Psalm 2:7 and Isaiah 42:1, two of the most popular Messianic prophesies, quoted at the transfiguration, that speak of the Messiah being chosen to come in judgment.
I love the way Peter understates his subtle rebuke here, you would do well to pay attention to the prophesies. Indeed they would do well — and so would we — to pay attention. Incredibly, we don’t have a silent, unknowable God. Our God spoke to us — first by the Prophets, then by His own Son. We would do well to take some initiative to read what He said and pay attention to it.
Then Peter gives this perfect analogy, that the prophecies are a lamp shining in the darkness. Most of the time we feel like we know what we’re doing in our decision-making and day-to-day living, but Peter says that really we’re in the darkness and we desperately need to turn on a lamp — the Scriptures. Sometimes we feel like we just need courage or strength or a change in our circumstances. We may not realize it, but our more basic need is light to see ourselves and our circumstances correctly — we need to dig into the Scriptures.
The final clause in the verse is the most beautiful as Peter turns his gaze to the future, the breaking of that final day when we don’t need the Scriptures anymore because Jesus Christ Himself, the morning star, will rise in our hearts, illuminating everything directly and brilliantly by His very presence. The Word Incarnate will supercede the Scriptures and our lives will no longer be like people finding their way through the darkness with a lamp, but rather like people walking in broad daylight. The best knowledge, of course, will be the knowledge of Him — we will know Him fully, just as we’ve been fully known (1 Cor 13:12).
Note: I will soon post my Translation Notes for this verse, especially since I took an uncommon route with the first phrase (“we have very strong confidence in the prophesies”) influenced by Bauckham’s commentary (Word Biblical Commentary).
