The Apostle Peter, in calling our attention to the certainties of experimental salvation, mentions three forms or three degrees of certainty. "For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eye witnesses of His majesty. For he received from God the Father, honor and glory, when there came such a voice to Him from the excellent glory, This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. And this voice which came from heaven we heard, when we were with Him in the holy mount. 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." 2 Pet. 1: 16-19.
In analyzing these verses we see the contrast between fables and revealed religion. Fables exist only in imagination based on tradition, but Christian salvation exists in experience, springing from divine revelation. The next item of analysis is that the certainties of this salvation touch the whole threefold torture of man, body, soul and spirit. It would be interesting to enumerate how frequently the idea of the trinity comes out in religious life. Three things constitute religious life -the doctrine, the experience, the outward practice. There are three elements in divine guidance -the revealed Word, the direct conviction of the Spirit, and the indications of Providence.
The three evidences mentioned in this passage by Peter are the testimony of the senses, the inspired Word, and the direct assurance of the Spirit. The first in order here is the testimony of the senses. We were "eye witnesses of His majesty," a "voice from the excellent glory," and "this voice we heard." Seeing and hearing are the primary sources of acquired knowledge.
There are two hemispheres of knowledge; first, the hemisphere of what we learn through our senses; secondly, the hemisphere of knowledge revealed intuitively by the Spirit. In the order of nature the knowledge through the senses comes first. Many people think if they could only see and hear the historical facts of the New Testament repeated, they could readily believe. But the wisdom of God has so arranged it that these facts are virtually repeated to each generation. There are yet transfigurations, the casting out of demons, Pauline conversions, and similar phenomena of grace which appeal to our eyes and ears, if we are willing to turn aside and see the sight. Have we not seen the wretched drunkard turned into a neat and earnest saint? Have we not seen the blurred face of sorrow or the gloomy face of despair made radiant with joy? Have we not heard the voice of blasphemy turned into a voice of prayer and praise, or the voice of complaining turned into that of thanksgiving? If we have not heard or seen, it is because we have not gone. to the spiritual mountains or the gracious valleys where such things are enacted. The voice of praise that breaks from a saved soul is like the prolongation of that voice which Peter heard in the holy mount. The luster that beams from every saintly countenance is the outshining of a part of that uncreated light which glistened through the raiment of Jesus at the transfiguration. They are effects from the same great cause referred to by Peter in the text.
When we sit on the seashore and see the white-capped rollers coming in, and hear their melodious dashing on the sand, we know that the cause which produces these sights and sounds is far off on the great deep; and that far out on the sea, beyond our sight, these breakers were set in motion. In like manner, far across on the sea of time, the living historical Jesus, who was visible and audible to the people of that generation, has by the perpetuity of His Word and Spirit so wrought on human souls, that the waves of grace He has set in motion still manifest themselves to our eyes and ears.
The next form of evidence is that of the inspired written Word, which the apostle declares is stronger than the testimony of the senses. "We also have a more sure word of prophecy, whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place." The natural man thinks that the testimony of the senses is the highest possible; but, as in many other instances, that which is the highest in nature is the lowest in grace. It is possible for our senses to deceive us, and very many instances might be cited to prove this, such as color blindness, double or triple vision, where persons see objects multiplied; also where disease in the auditory nerve reports sounds to the brain which do not occur in the vibrations in the air. The Word of God is absolutely free from such imperfections.
It is more sure than the senses, because so fitted by infinite wisdom to the mental and moral mechanism of the soul, that the very announcement of Scripture truth to the human mind, in any age of the world, whether among civilized or savage men, will carry conviction to the heart. No human being has ever lived whose soul would not respond to the truth of God's Word, unless it has first been tutored to unbelief, or morally stupefied by satanic opiates. You may select any congregation from the millions of earth, whether cultured or barbarous, and a simple announcement to them in their own language, of the ten commandments, the sermon on the mount, and the means of salvation through Jesus, if such congregation had not been tampered with by false teaching, their unbiased hearts and judgments would feel the truthfulness of the Word of God. The Word of God properly addressed to a human heart, carries its own evidence as really as a lamp, and finds a faculty in the soul that must respond to it as really as the organ of the eye responds to the light. Just as the Creator has fitted each bone to its appropriate socket, or the waves of the air to the drum of the ear, so He has fitted the truth of Scripture to the reason and conscience of man; and as the inner faculties of the soul are more authoritative than the senses of the body, so the Word of God is more sure to the inner man (if he is in harmony with it), than the testimony of miracles to the outward man.
The third and highest degree of evidence is that of the Holy Spirit working directly on interior consciousness. This form of evidence is indicated by the apostle in the words, "Until the day dawn, and the day-star arise, in your hearts." The words "dawn " and "arise " are both in the aorist tense, and indicate two distinct, instantaneous events. The life of the Holy Ghost in the soul is emphatically the daylight of divine life in man. But inspiration is accurate enough to indicate the pre and post Pentecost life, by the difference between the light of day and the full-orbed manifestation of the day-star. The Word of God shines in a "dark place," or, more emphatically, a "filthy place," until the day dawn; that is, Scripture truth shows us our sins and continues to manifest the filthiness of the heart, until the Holy Spirit regenerates us and scatters the gloom of guilt by an inward attestation of God's favor. We sometimes hear it said that the moon shines as bright as day; and we also hear it said of some moral but unregenerate persons, that they are about as good as Christians. But there is almost an infinite difference between the one and the other. A thousand moons shining at their full would not equal the light of day, though the sun were concealed behind a cloud or mountain; and all the morality -- be they ever so moral -- of a million unregenerate souls would not equal the life of the humblest believer truly born of God. The difference is not that of quantity, but quality. The highest morality apart from the new birth is like moonlight, borrowed and reflected from a cold, dead nature; but the inward life of the Holy Ghost, like the light of day, issues directly from its warm, living fountain. Religious certainty has not reached its climax until the personal Jesus, the day-star, has been unveiled in cloudless manifestation, as the full and perfect Saviour in the heart. And how true to experience are the words in the passage, that the Word of God will continue to shine and disclose the impurity of our nature, not only until we are regenerated, but until a fully manifested Christ purges us, and reveals His ineffable personality in our purified hearts.
