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A Lamp In A Dark Place (2 Peter 1:19-21)

Scott Kercheville
02/19/23 - Sun AM

Notice Isaiah 59:9-15a. There is no doubt about the dark atmosphere of this passage. These are not the days of energetic revival, faithfulness, and hope. Rather, society is full of unrighteousness and injustice. No one is honest, no one knows peace, they have strayed far from the Lord. And it’s not just out there — they see the sin in themselves. But the environment is so bleak that if they try leave behind evil and speak truth, they’re putting a target on their own backs. And they long for light, justice, and salvation from this bleak state.

It is impossible to miss that this bleak outlook is also shared by many today. There has been a growing sense for awhile that deceit, injustice, and godlessness are winning out more and more. Truth and uprightness are discouraged in the public squares. And even if you simply try to turn from your own sin and do right, you can be tarred and feathered. From the church to the world, anxiety, depression, and hopelessness are becoming pervasive. It’s likely that we all have something we are troubled about — in the world, in our city, schools, churches, families, or ourselves. And the perspective of Scripture does plainly agree: it’s indeed nighttime, but this is the dark before the dawn. The Lord’s final day of judgment and salvation is coming with unstoppable light.

And Peter insists that he will continue to shamelessly remind us about that so that we will diligently prepare for the coming of Jesus’ eternal kingdom. For, Peter says, however much it may sound like a myth, the powerful coming of the Lord Jesus is no myth. When they saw Jesus transfigured on the mountain, they saw a preview of the show-stopping power and glory he’ll literally come with on that last day. And for Peter, this reality warrants a few quick words of instruction and caution about the OT prophets in the midst of our present darkness.

Here’s the point of what Peter says here: Jesus’ transfiguration provides confirmation of what the OT prophets saw about Jesus’ second coming; and those prophecies provide illumination  in the darkness from God’s inspiration, not man’s interpretation. So, with respect to what the prophets said about Jesus’ second coming, we have confirmation, illumination, inspiration, not interpretation.

First, verse 19, Jesus’ transfiguration is confirmation of what the OT prophets saw about Jesus’ coming. Maybe you have read what the OT prophets say Jesus will do on the final day and wondered how fully he’ll forgive sin, whether wickedness will actually be ended, whether all our tears will really be wiped away, whether rebels will really be punished, how much of the curse will really be gone, whether he’ll really come in the clouds in splendor, raise the dead, make all things new, and reign forevermore — Peter’s addressing that. The prophets were already solid and reliable and confirmed before. We knew Psalm 2 was true: God will appoint his Son to reign from Mt. Zion over all the earth. But now? We saw the Jesus in kingly splendor on the mountain and we heard the Father declare him to be the Son. So, now, it and every prophetic word about the powerful second coming of our Lord is more fully confirmed. And if you have ever wondered how real and tangible it will all be, take heart. Peter’s not saying that they just had this spiritual moment in their hearts that is better felt than told, or that he had a moment of intellectual clarity and in his mind it is like Jesus was spiritually splendid that day. No, the transfiguration was real, touchable, visible, audible. They experienced what it will be like when Psalm 2 literally comes to pass — with all the other prophets too. So, we don’t need to read the prophets from a distance and mistrust them. We don’t need to hedge our bets in case none of it is reliable. It was already confirmed and reliable before. But now? It’s more fully confirmed.

Second, verse 19, we need to pay attention to the lamp-like illumination the OT prophets give in this darkness until the prophesied dawn. Though Jesus has come and brought some light into the world, and he’s indeed illuminating the world through us as the light, it was more a temporary preview of the final day than the permanent day of light itself. We’re in a dark place. And it has been dark for a long time. It’s not that there’s not joy and hope and love — there is so much to thank God for! But let’s face it — the Proverbs are right when they say that even in laughter the heart can ache. It’s because we wish the smile and laughter could last forever, but we know they won’t yet. Because evil always seems to drag itself back up out of the darkness to afflict us. And even in our hearts there is still darkness — not only do we still sin, there is also just so much that we don’t know and that is unclear and disturbing to us. We often don’t understand what God is up to. Even when we have light our hearts are just not quite fully illuminated yet.

But notice what Peter says at the end of verse 19. We’re in a dark place, but the day will dawn. We may moan in our hearts and long for clarity, but Jesus the morning star will arise in our hearts. Every shadow will flee, creation will be set free from futility, all things will be made new, the sun and moon will be gone for the Father and the Son will be our light. And not only will everything be illuminated out there, but the illumination of Jesus’ coming will spread all the way to in here — in our hearts. No more fears, doubts, or dangers — all will be made new and all will be made clear.

But how can we last, what can we do until that day? Peter says we’d do well to pay attention to the prophetic word as to a lamp shining in a dark place. Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. What do we do when we can’t be with the people we love? Maybe our kids, grandkids, or a spouse? We look at pictures of them or watch a video. It reminds us how much we love them and long to be with them. It makes us start counting the days till we see them next. The prophets are like that for us — they provide little snapshots and visions of what the coming day will be like. Peter says in Acts 3:21 that heaven has received Jesus for now, but only until it’s time to restore all the things about which God spoke by his holy prophets long ago. So what should we do in this darkness until then? Naturally, we should hold up and pay close attention to the prophets like a lamp until the dawn they prophesied comes!

There’s a number of things our tradition does well, but one humble critique I would submit is that generally the prophets are not read like this in our tradition. It has not always been like this, but when dispensational premillennialists started strangely reading the prophets like an ultra specific timetable for the future to fill in their doomsday charts, in our tradition we often did the opposite — treating the Prophets like a time table for the past, like bit of history that’s dead and gone with a little application to us here and there. And though we may feel like we’re just being faithful to the text by only limiting a text to one specific historical referent — like Israel, Babylon, Egypt, or Edom — this way of reading the Old Testament is simply new and novel. It’s a reaction to bad reading of Scripture, but this is not even how the Jews before Jesus read what we call the historical books — let alone the prophets (unless maybe if you were a Sadducee) — and it’s certainly not how Peter or the apostles read them. In fact, Peter sees himself as preparing the church against false teachers who are ignorant and who twist the Scripture and say those OT prophets have no predictions for us. “Our” motive has not at all been evil, but this approach puts us in a similar (not the same) place as the false teachers.

I remember when I was young hoping nobody ever asked me about the prophets or read the prophets around me because I didn’t know how to explain to my friends that it’s just not anything what it sounds like. I didn’t quite understand the spiritualizing abilities of the adults around me. And while the prophets are not necessarily easy — even the Ethiopian Eunuch insisted he needed a guide — I hope that Peter’s encouragement to us here will lead us to scrap these strange readings and run to the prophets and read them with childlike wonder and fearfulness. Let the imagery of national judgments stir you to fear, for they are intended to also preview and prophesy about the cataclysm of the final day. Let their calls for repentance stir you, for our sins are no different than theirs were. And let the their visions of restoration warm your heart and energize your body and fill you with hope as we wait for the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Third, verses 20-21, this comes from no man’s interpretation; those prophecies come from God’s inspiration. In case we are thinking that reading the prophets like this is just some man’s imaginative interpretation, Peter insists that’s not at all the case. He’s giving the true, genuine apostolic interpretation from God. And actually, it’s the false teachers Peter will warn about who are applying their own interpretations. The prophets, Peter says, didn’t even arise at all from any man’s will at all. In fact, God had to drag some of his spokesmen kicking and screaming (Moses, Jonah, Jeremiah). No, men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

Loads of people have tried to figure out exactly how inspiration of Scripture works — especially the prophets — but here we simply don’t have a specific explanation. Men spoke from God carried along by the Holy Spirit. Clearly when we read the prophets we can see the men were not just lifeless vehicles, they were very much invested and part of what they were doing. God used each of them in different ways, but it appears we can even see their own unique poetic style in each of their books. But at the same time, the words they spoke were very much from God. Men spoke… from God… carried along by the Holy Spirit.

And all in all, that means that though our understanding of God’s word may be limited at times, the word of God is inerrant and infallible, without error. We can very much trust what you read in your hands is God’s word. People frequently say things like, “There are so many scribal additions and errors and it has been translated so many times that the Bible is just nothing like what it used to be.” I understand, they saw some video and repeated what they heard. But the beauty is we have so many manuscripts from the original languages that it is quite easy to see where Scribes made mistakes. And our English Bibles are not translations of translations of translations — they are translated from the original language. And guess what? Jesus and the apostles used Old Testaments translated into Greek too. In fact, today scholars say that by our modern standards, the translation Jesus used wasn’t very good. And yet he and the apostles still trusted and used it, variants and all.

And all this is to simply say that we can trust our Bibles. Pay attention to the prophets as to a lamp. They are not from men, but from God. And they have been fully confirmed.

In that vein, I love Isaiah 59:15-21. We saw before how dark and gloomy everything is. But notice one of Isaiah’s many visions of hope. In the darkness we wonder if God sees or hears and how he can stand by silently for so long. But Isaiah says we can be certain that Yahweh sees the lies, wickedness, and darkness and he himself is displeased by it. He’s been looking for a man set things right — for the offspring of woman to come trample the snakes if you will — but he sees that there’s no man. So Isaiah sees God dress himself for battle to repay his enemies and and to redeem those who turn from transgressions. He sees a day when people fear the Lord from east to west. And then God turns and appears to assure Isaiah: no one’s ever going to forget the words I put in your mouth. Yes, as Peter says, some will try to make us forget; but God promises Isaiah, they’ll be in the mouths of your children and your children’s offspring forever. May that be true for us. May we continue to rehearse Isaiah and the prophets — and long for the day when the Lord Jesus comes from heaven dressed for battle to save we who are eagerly waiting for him.