The More Sure Word
2 Peter 1:16-21
April 2, 2017
We are now in a new study together.
• I must confess, that I don’t really have a structure for how we’re going to work through this, or how long it will take, or even what it’s going to look like.
• I most certainly want to remain faithful to the call to exposit Scripture, after all Scripture is our authority. However, part of this study is going to require working through some of the issues of the past and present day to understand the importance of what took place 500 years ago.
The motivation for this study comes from the fact that this October 31,
We celebrate the 500th anniversary of the Reformation.
It was October 31, 1517 when Martin Luther nailed his 95 thesis on the door of the castle church in Wittenberg, Germany.
And most certainly at another time we will look more into the life of Martin Luther and what transpired which brought about his ministry.
We will also look at other reformers, for Luther wasn’t the only one.
Ulrich Zwingli Martin Bucer William Tyndale Philip Melanchthon
John Rogers Heinrich Bullinger John Calvin
They all have a place, and one of the goals of this study
Is to help you identify with them a little better.
HOWEVER, THIS IS NOT A STUDY FOR THE SAKE OF HISTORY.
This is a study primarily about
The importance and sacred nature of the gospel.
If you are not aware, the gospel is almost always under attack.
Some of those attacks are blatantly obvious,
Some are subtle and deceptively dangerous.
It is the primary work of the church to recognize those attacks, expose them, contradict them, and to preserve the true gospel for mankind.
This is primarily what the apostle Paul meant when he wrote to Timothy.
1 Timothy 3:14-15 “I am writing these things to you, hoping to come to you before long; but in case I am delayed, I write so that you will know how one ought to conduct himself in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and support of the truth.”
That is what the church is.
She is “the pillar and support of the truth”
Jude put it like this:
Jude 3-4 “Beloved, while I was making every effort to write you about our common salvation, I felt the necessity to write to you appealing that you contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all handed down to the saints. For certain persons have crept in unnoticed, those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation, ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.”
I especially like how Jude spoke of the gospel there.
He called it “the faith which was once for all handed down to the saints.”
We are talking here about “the faith”
Not “a faith”
It is a concrete, settled, absolute, system of truth.
When Paul wrote to the Ephesians he wrote:
Ephesians 4:4-6 “There is one body and one Spirit, just as also you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all.”
There Paul also referred to it as “one faith”
That is, there is only one true system of belief.
The church’s calling is to cherish, understand, believe,
Proclaim, and defend the truth of the gospel.
NOW I SAY THAT BECAUSE I want you to be aware that there are many battles being fought in regard to the gospel,
And I fear that some of them we may not even be aware of.
Let me give you an example.
Are you familiar with the name Bloody Mary?
• She was actually Mary I, daughter of Henry VIII
• She was a strong Catholic and was bent on squashing Protestantism.
• Her first martyr was a man named John Rogers.
• He was burned at the stake.
Do you know why Mary had John Rogers burned at the stake?
• Because he denied the concept of “The Real Presence” in the Lord’s Supper.
That is that he denied the Catholic teaching that
The Lord’s Supper actually becomes the body and blood of Christ.
And yes that is a huge point!
It is question which hinges upon the sufficiency of the death of Christ.
Catholic doctrine says Christ suffers over and over again during the Mass.
Rogers held that the one death of Christ was totally sufficient.
Rogers died for that.
Led to slaughter before his wife and children
All because he would not allow the gospel to be distorted.
And yet today, there is a constant urge among evangelicals
Who want to include Catholicism as another branch of Christianity.
Today the cry is for unity at all cost.
People are willing to give up doctrine if we can just get along.
Rogers died to defend a point of the gospel that so many are seemingly willing to abandon just so we can have “unity”.
Now that is simply one example, but I use it to make a point.
These men of the reformation gave their lives to rescue for us
A gospel which had been abused and hidden and all but forgotten.
And we must not be willing to bury that gospel again.
AND SO THIS STUDY IS ABOUT THE GOSPEL
• It is about how the gospel had become concealed
• It is about how the gospel became revealed
• It is about what the true gospel really is
• It is about why we must defend it
• And it is about the men who did that 500 years ago
And tonight I just want us to start, with this question.
WHAT DICTATES WHAT YOU BELIEVE?
What is your ultimate authority?
You already have a standard by which you measure all things as true or false,
I merely want you to answer what it is.
In the dark ages, before the reformation that answer was clear.
What dictates what you believe? THE CHURCH
• The church sat as the supreme authority.
• Devised from a weird sort of supposed apostolic succession from Peter down through the popes.
• The Scripture was not really even accessible.
• The only Bible’s around were in Latin (which couldn’t even be understood by the common man) and in some cases were even chained to the lectern.
The real authority was the church.
Time after time in matters of dispute the answer was “The Church has said…”
To the world prior to the reformation God was the supreme authority
And that authority was revealed through the church.
So, if the church said it, you believed it, it was authority.
Now of course the reformation began to challenge that, as we will see.
The reformation challenged the authority of popes and traditions.
But going on at the same time as the Reformation
Was what is known as the Renaissance and the rise of Philosophy.
The Renaissance led to what is known as “The Age of Enlightenment”
And things like Modernism and Higher Criticism.
The idea that there is absolute truth
And it is discovered through scientific evidence and reasoning.
So during the dark ages if you ask what dictates truth, they would answer, “The church”.
But during the Age of Enlightenment if you ask “What dictates truth?”, they would answer “SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE AND REASON”
If you are curious about the effect this had on Christianity;
It is modernism that is the father of Liberal Theology.
• Liberal theologians began to apply higher criticism and scientific method to
Scripture
• Before long things like miracles were rejected
• As were things like a literal 7 day creation
• And even most Biblical authorship.
Higher criticism and modernism quickly led to
Theological liberalism and even rank unbelief.
Well now, we have entered a sphere which is referred to as
“POST-MODERNISM”
And basically post modernism has become the age of skeptics.
Post-modernism has rejected the absolute authority of things
Like science and reason.
For example, the science of biology is no longer authoritative to a culture which says gender is a matter of one’s own personal preference.
So Post-modernism has come along, and when you ask the world today “What dictates truth?” they will say, “PERSPECTIVE” or “I do”
It is the idea behind the statement,
“That may be true for you, but it’s not true for me.”
Modernism says we find truth through studying scientific facts, Post-modernism said, we can’t trust you to view the facts neutrally and fairly and accurately.
You see that mindset in our culture today to be certain.
The Post-Modern mindset has also had an effect on Christianity.
With post-modernism has come the rise of charismatic doctrine.
What dictates truth to a charismatic? “EXPERIENCE”
If I experienced it, then it is true.
It doesn’t matter if it can be explained Biblically,
It was real to me and therefore true for me.
I can give you an example of all of this playing out right here in Spur.
A few years ago Rudi Hernandez (then pastor of Community Bible Chapel) wanted to have “Unity” meetings among the pastors, so I went.
Part of the process was really just to sort of feel out where everyone was on the various issues of theology and faith. (You know we had to start somewhere).
At one point I began talking about the gospel and the importance of Scripture to which one pastor cut me off and said, “See, I don’t believe the Bible is true. I embrace higher criticism. You can’t get a systematic theology from Paul. Typically in AA our first goal is to push people to believe in a higher power, and that typically starts with the light bulb.”
He was expressing modernism.
It has to be scientific, it has to support reason.
Whereas a lightbulb can be scientifically explained,
God cannot and therefore it was rejected.
This man’s authority for truth was his own reason/logic/science.
While arguing with this pastor about my belief in the truth of Scripture another one of the leaders there said, “If the Bible was disproved today, it would not affect my faith in the least.” To which I responded, “Then what does your faith stand on?” And he said, “Jesus Christ and Him crucified.” To which he then began to relate to me how Jesus had appeared to him and would appear to me too.
In short, he didn’t need Scripture, he didn’t need logic or reason,
He only needed his experience.
That is in part post-modernism.
It was true to him regardless of whether or not it was true to anyone else
Because he had experienced it.
So you can see that determining what dictates what you believe
Is a very important issue.
In fact the very truth and accuracy of the gospel is at stake.
BEFORE you can really discuss any theology or doctrine,
You first have to settle the issue of
Where you go as your final authority for truth.
Well, 500 years ago the reformers settled that issue for themselves.
What was their answer to the question?
SOLA SCRIPTURA
Steve Lawson said, “The Reformation was essentially a crisis over which authority should have primacy. Rome claimed the church’s authority lay with Scripture and tradition, Scripture and the pope, Scripture and church councils. But the reformers believed that the authority belonged to Scripture alone.”(Taken from “Pillars of Grace” by Steven Lawson)
Philip Schaff said, “While the Humanists went back to the ancient classics and revived the spirit of Greek and Roman paganism, the Reformers went back to the sacred Scriptures in the original languages and revived the spirit of apostolic Christianity. They were fired by an enthusiasm for the gospel, such as had never been known since the days of Paul. Christ rose from the tomb of human traditions and preached again His words of life and power. The Bible, heretofore a book of priests only, was now translated anew and better than ever into the vernacular tongues of Europe, and made a book of the people. Every Christian man could henceforth go to the fountain-head of inspiration, and sit at the feet of the Divine Teacher, without priestly permission and intervention” (Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, Vol. VII: Modern Christianity—The German Reformation [1910; repr., Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980],17)
It was SOLA SCRIPTURA
This is without a doubt the foundational stone
That came out of the reformation.
Without this one, none of the other solas or doctrines would have ever emerged or remained.
So as we begin our study, it is important that we begin with the understanding that SCRIPTURE ALONE DICTATES WHAT WE BELIEVE.
That does not mean that we never listen to anything else,
Or that Scripture answers every minute question of life.
But what it does mean is that Scripture is sufficient and authoritative.
It tells us everything we need to know regarding salvation,
And what it does say trumps everything else.
John MacArthur wrote: “Sola Scriptura simply means that all truth necessary for our salvation and spiritual life is taught either explicitly or implicitly in Scripture…Scripture is the highest and supreme authority on any matter on which it speaks. But there are many important questions on which Scripture is silent. Sola Scriptura makes no claim to the contrary. Nor does sola Scriptura claim that everything Jesus or the apostles ever taught is preserved in Scripture. It only means that everything necessary, everything binding on our consciences, and everything God requires of us is given to us in Scripture (2 Peter 1:3)…Scripture is therefore the perfect and only standard of spiritual truth, revealing infallibly all that we must believe in order to be saved and all that we must do in order to glorify God. That—no more, no less—is what sola Scriptura means.
(This excerpt is taken from John MacArthur’s contribution in Sola Scriptura: The Protestant Position on the Bible.) Sited at this website: http://www.ligonier.org/blog/what-does-sola-scriptura-mean/
And that is precisely what we learn from Peter here.
If you are familiar with Peter’s epistles you know that
Peter dealt with a church that suffered greatly,
And a church that dealt with many apostates, false prophets, & mockers.
Peter sought to bring resolve and clarity and conviction to his flock.
In a world of mockers he wants them to know what to believe.
There are two main things I want you to quickly see in this text
#1 OUR TESTIMONY IS TRUE
2 Peter 1:16-18
“We did not follow cleverly devised tales…”
Two things are implied there.
The stories originated with us (“we did not follow”)
The stories are not fabricated (“cleverly devised tales…”)
In other words, this is not just some good story
That has been passed down to us
That we feel the need to pass down to you.
This is not some “made up” story.
“when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, …we were eyewitnesses of His majesty.”
REMEMBER THE STORY?
TURN TO: MATTHEW 17:1-8
Peter says when we tell you about the “majesty” of Jesus,
You can rest assured we are not making it up. We saw it.
(17-18) “For when He received honor and glory from God the Father, such an utterance as this was made to Him by the Majestic Glory, “This is My beloved Son with whom I am well-pleased” – and we ourselves heard this utterance made from heaven when we were with Him on the holy mountain.”
This is not some made up testimony, we both saw it and we heard it.
This is not some clever tale, it was real.
Peter’s point here is that he is not a story-teller, he is a witness.
And their lives form tremendous proof for all of us.
I mean, let’s suppose Peter was actually making this up.
Well, do you remember what sort of things Peter endured for this story?
Peter,
• At what point while being flogged, do you admit you made up the story?
• At what point while being imprisoned, do you admit you made up the story?
• At what point while watching the crucifixion of your wife do you admit you made up the story?
• At what point while enduring your own crucifixion do you admit you made up the story?
How about you James?
• At what point James when you are being stabbed with a sword do you admit that you made up that story?
Or John?
• At what point John when you are being arrested do you admit you made up the story?
• At what point of being imprisoned at Patmos do you admit you made up the story?
DO YOU GET THE POINT?
If this is a cleverly devised tale,
Then why stick to it all the way to the death?
Obviously the point is that Peter didn’t create this story, he witnessed it.
And so here Peter tells the flock,
I tell you these things over and over because it is true.
But of course for many people that is not nearly enough.
• So what – Peter vows that it is true…
• So what – he died for that story…
• I still don’t believe it.
Well, if Peter’s experience is not enough for you,
Then listen to Peter’s second reason he knows it is true.
First – Our Testimony is True
#2 THE SCRIPTURE IS SURE
2 Peter 1:19-21
This is where we cry SOLA SCRIPTURA!
Now, Depending on the translation you read,
Verse 19 can be a little misleading.
The NASB says, “So we have the prophetic word made more sure”
And when you read it like that it sounds as if Peter is saying, “We know the prophets are true because we saw the glory of Jesus with our own eyes.”
In other words “Our experience validates the Scripture.”
But that is a tad bit misleading.
The actual and literal Greek translation says, “We have the even more sure prophetic word”
The KJV is actually more accurate when it says, “We have also a more sure word of prophecy”
That actual order indicates that Peter is saying,
“Even if you don’t believe my experience, so what,
We have something here more convincing than experience
And that is the Scripture.”
This is why I ask you: “What dictates what you believe?”
• Peter here makes the distinction.
• He is putting Scripture ahead of experience.
Our ultimate authority isn’t the church council
Our ultimate authority isn’t church tradition
Our ultimate authority isn’t scientific evidence
Our ultimate authority isn’t personal preference
Our ultimate authority isn’t mystical experience
All of those things can be wrong.
When Martyn Luther was called before the Diet of Worms and commanded to recant all that he had written, Luther responded:
“Unless I am convinced by the testimony of the Scriptures or by clear reason (for I do not trust either in the pope or in councils alone, since it is well known that they have often erred and contradicted themselves), I am bound by the Scriptures I have quoted and my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and will not recant anything, since it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience. Here I stand, I can do no other, may God help me. Amen.”
For Luther there was only one final authority and it was SOLA SCRIPTURA
And that is what Peter is saying here.
