We have also a more
sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light
that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in
your hearts: Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any
private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of
man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.
Peter witnessed the feeding of the five thousand as he
lugged around a basket filled with rolls and fish sticks. He personally climbed
out of a boat in the middle of the wave-tossed sea and walked on water to
Jesus. He saw the transfiguration of Christ with his own eyes. He lived with
Jesus and understood the prophecies of the Old Testament about the Messiah.
There was no more guessing when the Christ would come, Peter knew He had
already come. No longer did he have to rely on someone’s opinion of the
Messiah, He now walked with Him and spoke to Him. Peter didn’t have to trust in
the Messiah as if He was some mystical figure like the Tooth Fairy. Peter had
seen and touched Jesus. He heard God from heaven say of Jesus, “This is my
beloved Son.” From the very mouth of God, Peter now heard audibly the words
that God had been speaking through the writings of his appointed men. Prophecy
had been the words of God from the mouths of men, but this vindication came
from God’s mouth. Now, faith in Jesus’s Divinity did not have to be proven from
the texts of the Old Testament, although it could be, God Himself had spoken of
Jesus’s Divinity. We truly can believe God’s Words. Peter closes his treatise
here in verse 21 with “holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.”
We don’t have to say one is better than the other. The life experience of
hearing the audible voice of God was to Peter as real as the written word of
God being breathed through God’s holy penmen. There was no need to make a
distinction, because when God speaks it is always with absolute authority. As
authoritative as God’s Words were on the Mount of Transfiguration, His Holy
Word that we possess in the Scriptures is equally as authoritative. We even
now, with surety can read His Word with as much confidence as if He were here
speaking audibly the same words to us.
Food For Thought:
Which holds more authority, God speaking to us with a voice from heaven or God
speaking to us through the pages of the Bible?
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