2 Peter 1:15–18

The word for death in 2 Peter 1:15 is "decease," literally exodus, "departure": "After my departure."

"Departure" (ἔξοδος): compare Acts 13:34, for Luke's use of εἰσόδος, "entry." The word "exodus" is found again in 2 Peter 1:15.

See what use Peter made of what he knew, and how he practised the diligence he has pressed on others in this chapter. He goes on to press home the reality and certainty of the coming kingdom. He never stops to say just what he planned to do. It is very evident, however, that what he planned and accomplished was the writing of the Epistle that we are now reading. He did it under the guidance and inspiration of the Holy Spirit. By means of it we can now at any time call to mind these things, though Peter's voice is long since silent.

"To have these things always in remembrance." "These things" appear five times. So our souls cannot over-estimate the value and the worth of verses 5, 6, 7, which the apostle points back to five times over. The Lord grant we may have them always in remembrance, yes, have them engraved on the tablets of our hearts. Peter felt there was no apostolic succession, no one to do the work he was doing, after his death. So he says, I leave you my epistle, something that may always be a blessing and a help to your souls.

Peter writes to believers of his own nation, scattered through Pontus. He says, "I will make every effort" — that is, by writing the epistle — "so that after my departure you may be able at any time to recall these things" (2 Peter 1:15). So he commits their future to the guidance of the written word, not to apostolic successors. Paul does the same. He speaks to the elders of the church in Ephesus and warns them of the difficulties and dangers ahead. He says, "And now I commend you to God and to the word of his grace" (Acts 20:32).

Can anything more plainly show the absurdity of trusting tradition, even of early days, when we have the sure light of God's word? Yet all of it justifies our apostle in his zeal. He left nothing for the building up of the saints to such a haphazard channel. He wrote all that was needed to help, guard, and stir them, in words taught by the Spirit. In this way they would come face to face with Him who inspired these exhortations.

Peter wrote to them so that they would be able to return to his letter and receive its help again in the future. The same principle applies to the whole of the Word of God. God has given it to us so that we can turn to it for the instruction or correction we often need. Today we can keep several translations of the Bible on our phones. So Peter's statement is true in the plainest sense: at any time we can call to mind the instruction in God's Word. Do we take advantage of this?

Peter knew that he must soon put off this tent of his body, as the Lord had shown him. With a true shepherd's heart and care he thinks of the Lord's blood-bought sheep. So he would all the more fully warn them, urge them, and remind them, so that after he was gone they might have those things always in remembrance. Though they knew them already, he would still put them in mind, and press on them what would sustain them, leading them on in diligence, so that they might be kept from falling while here.

Peter was writing to people who had cherished the hope of Messiah's kingdom from their fathers' days, and who had lived to see Him rejected and crucified. Were they tempted then to wonder about the prophecies of His glorious and actual kingdom, covering both earth and heaven? Were they only figures of speech — glowing, poetic descriptions of what was after all just a spiritual and invisible state in heaven?

In each Gospel that tells of it, the transfiguration comes right after a promise. Some standing there would not taste death before they saw the kingdom of the Son of Man. And Peter, when speaking of this scene, declares that it was a display of the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He says that the sight of His majesty confirmed the word of prophecy to them, so that they knew what they were talking about... It was a sample of the glory in which He would later come, given to confirm the faith of His disciples in view of His death, which He had just announced to them.

If we turn to Mark 9, we find the Lord saying in verse 1, "there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God after it has come with power." In Matthew 16:28 it is, "until they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom." Third, in Luke 9:30-31, we find Moses and Elijah, "who appeared in glory". Peter speaks of these three marks — the power, the coming and the glory of the Lord — referring to the three different characters of the transfiguration in the Gospels.

Here our apostle testifies to it as one of the chosen three who actually saw the glory and heard the Father's voice about the Son. He uses a word found in the New Testament only in Peter. The word can carry a wide meaning, but it says more than "eyewitness". The Greeks used it for those admitted to the highest level of their secret religious rites.

He had spoken of things seen as well as things heard. The apostles Peter, John and James were together eyewitnesses of the majesty of Christ, the three of them forming a complete witness to His glory. They had known Christ in weakness and humiliation; they saw Him too in His power and majesty. The scene on the mount of transfiguration was a foretaste of His coming, for His coming will be in power and majesty. That power will change our bodies of humiliation into conformity to His body of glory. It is the power by which He is able even to subject all things to Himself (Philippians 3:21).

Look around the Christian world and ask people! Ah, they say, there is no prophecy. They say the book of Isaiah must be cut into three or four parts to get rid of the idea of prophecy. In the second part it names a man like King Cyrus, and nobody, they claim, can speak about a person in advance. It is impossible; there is no prophecy. Cleverly devised myths! they say.

When faith grasps the glory of Christ in the world to come, all the glitter and brightness of this world will fade into darkness. We will then value it at its true worth.

It was not the glory that belongs to Him in Himself. The point was not glory shining out of Him, but glory given to Him. "He received honor and glory from God the Father."

It was the Father's voice out of the excellent glory. "He was still speaking when, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and a voice from the cloud said, 'This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.'" The Father then showed His jealousy for the honour of His Son. He would not allow anyone to put the law-giver or the law-restorer on that level. They were servants, to be honoured in the place He gave them. But His beloved Son! — there were His delights. Christ went down in infinite love to suffer as man, and as man to be exalted. Yet in His Father's eyes the glory of the eternal Son was precious beyond all human thought.

Men heaped dishonour and shame on Christ. In contrast, He received honour and glory from God the Father. All others have come short of the glory. In contrast, here was One whom "the excellent glory" greeted as the beloved Son of the Father. The voice the Apostle heard came from heaven, and all heaven agrees with the Father's delight in Christ. The whole scene lets us into the secret of heaven's delight in Christ, and of how precious the Son is to the Father.

Soon His departure in Jerusalem would prove that the city He wept over saw no beauty in Him to desire. It hid its face from Him, the way people turn away from someone, and treated Him as struck down by God and afflicted. But here the voice out of the glory declares, This is my beloved Son in whom I found My delight. So it had been in eternity before creation. So it was when the world was made by Him, in all the dealings of providence, in the secret working of grace with people, and in the public government of Israel under the law.

Peter, speaking of this scene in 2 Peter 1:16, says it was a display of the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He says that the sight of His majesty confirmed the word of prophecy to them… It was a sample of the glory in which He will come later. It was given to confirm the faith of His disciples, who now faced the death He had just announced to them.

Peter tells us that this voice came from the excellent glory… Now Peter and the others had entered into the cloud. So we get the wonderful fact that saints have the privilege of standing in the glory the voice comes from, and there, in that glory, sharing the delight of the Father in His beloved Son. We are called not only to the fellowship of God's Son, Jesus Christ, but to have fellowship with the Father. God the Father admits us to share His satisfaction in His beloved Son.

To assure them of this, he reminds them of two things. He had seen it himself on the mountain where Jesus was transfigured. He had also heard the voice from the excellent glory: "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." In one word, he had seen and heard, and this is what qualifies a competent witness.

Every part of the scene before their eyes was a magnificent testimony to the future kingdom of the Son of Man. They saw that kingdom on a small scale. Later the Lord will come and set it up in visible grandeur, at its appointed time, before the whole universe. But the emphasis clearly falls on "this voice we heard," carried out of heaven, when we were with Him on the holy mountain.

Men heaped dishonour and shame on Christ. In contrast, He received honour and glory from God the Father. And the voice the Apostle heard came from heaven; all heaven agrees with the Father's delight in Christ. The whole scene lets us into the secret of heaven's delight in Christ. It shows how precious the Son is to the Father. The honour and glory He receives comes "from God the Father", "from the excellent glory", and "from heaven".

The disciples were not in heaven. As one of them says, "we ourselves heard this very voice borne from heaven." They did not enter the cloud of the excellent glory with Moses and Elijah. Yet they saw it, and they have spoken of it. They have testified to us that they have been "eye-witnesses of His Majesty."

The Apostle may well speak of such a spot as "the holy mountain". Above the earth, and apart from the world, God lets us share with the Father in His delight in Christ. It is not what Christ is to sinners: we learn that in the sorrows of the plain below and the sufferings of the cross. Nor is it what Christ is to His tried saints: we learn that in the upper room. On the holy mountain we learn what Jesus is to the Father, to glory, and to heaven.

The voice comes, as Peter says, "from the excellent glory: This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." Notice that in the Gospels God added the words, "Hear him." Peter needed those words then. He was lowering his Master while lifting up Moses and Elijah. He learned his lesson, however, and here, quoting the Father's words, he leaves out "Hear him." By this time he had learned to listen to no voice but the voice of Jesus.

Our apostle leaves out the clause that the Gospel writers carefully record. It is not that he could forget it, or would forget it. He leaves it out to bring forward the Father's good pleasure in Him, His beloved Son.