Peter is offering evidence that he and his fellow apostles were telling the truth. He began with the fact that he actually heard God the Father and saw His Son. Being an eyewitness was extremely important to a Jewish audience since as they were brought up with the understanding of the Torah, which required two or more witnesses (see Numbers 35:30; Deuteronomy 17:6; 19:15). Being an eyewitness still brings credibility to a person giving testimony today. Now Peter adds to the trustworthiness of their sayings by proclaiming “and we have something more sure.”
What could possibly be “more sure” than an eyewitness? Again, if we understand the Word of God we know that God cannot lie (see Numbers 23:19; 1 Kings 8:56; Psalms 119:160; Titus 1:2; Hebrews 6:18) and that when He promises something He will indeed fulfill His promise (see Psalm 19:1-4, 7; John 17:17; 1 Corinthians 2:10-14). Peter says we have God’s Word and that what he is saying is true. The ‘we’ is not the emphatic pronoun like the ‘we’ in verse 18 referring to him and the apostles, the ‘we’ here is the collective of all believers.
1:19 And we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts,
What is the prophetic word and why is it so important? Sadly, the word ‘prophecy’ has been hijacked or misused by many today (including many well-intended Christians and churches) which often results in creating an unpleasant or distasteful attitude. Many people today use the term prophecy or prophetic word to refer only to end times (the study of end-time prophecy is known as eschatology) or things yet to occur. We sometimes get too focused on what’s to come, that we forget what (or who) already came. While prophecy does include end-time discussion, Biblically it is a lot more. The word in the Greek first refers to something that comes from God (in that sense the whole Bible is prophetic), however, the word also implies that it is declaring the purposes of God by revealing something, or by the foretelling of future events. Let me stop here and say that we need to be careful with words like foretelling, predicting, etc. God does not guess, estimate or even predict. To Him all things in time are done (He knows all things, including the future, see Isaiah 46:8-13, Peter will expand this concept in chapter three). This is an extremely difficult thing to understand since we can only relate to things that have a beginning and an end. I believe that this is something we need to believe through faith and is truly something we can’t fully comprehend.
So going back to the question of why is prophecy so important we might need to seek the answer to another question first, namely what makes the Bible different than any other book or writing? We know Scripture is true and absolute, but it is prophecy that renders that truth as being something that came from God. I call prophecy “the signature of God” since God is the only One that knows the end from the beginning, only He can know ahead of time what is going to happen with 100 percent accuracy. We are not to use prophecy to predict the future but to understand more fully God’s plan, so if something that is understood to be yet future does occur in our lifetime we will know that it was fulfilled according to His plan, allowing us to bring comfort and be a witness to others just as Peter is describing regarding what he and the other apostles saw and heard. The fulfillment of prophecy from Genesis to Revelation offers infallible and absolute evidence that the Bible is the Word of God. No other faith, religion, or person in history can make that claim. Why is prophecy important? Simply put, it is proof! The joy of our salvation and all other promises in His Word can be summarized in this statement: “God delights in keeping His promises, hallelujah!”
The Israelites were given many promises and prophecies throughout their dealings with God in the Old Testament. God even gave them instructions on how to deal with false prophets (death by stoning if they were ever wrong, see Deuteronomy 13:1-5; 18:20-22). He also provided for a way to qualify each prophet by giving them a short-term prophecy that would soon be fulfilled. God spoke through these prophets and few questioned them, as they knew their words would be fulfilled. We see the New Testament regularly discusses the concept of prophecy fulfilled (for some examples see Acts 2:14-41; 4:8-12; 7:1-53; 15:15-17; 28:25-31; Romans 15:8-21; 1 Peter 2:4-12 and essentially the entire books of Hebrews and Revelation, note in Revelation alone there are over 800 references to the Old Testament in the book’s 404 verses, that averages over two per verse!) The gospel of John regularly states something like “just as it was written” or “this was to fulfill the word” (see John 12:14, 38 for a few examples). Peter knew that prophecy set God’s Word on a different level than any other book or source of literature!
Peter says we would do well to pay attention to the prophetic word that was confirmed. When I read verse 19, I can picture Peter yelling loudly “listen up people, pay attention and yes, this will be on a test!” We all need to know the truth as Peter puts it, “just like a lamp shining in a dark place.” That analogy reminds me of Psalm 119:105 “Your Word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.” Peter goes on to say that we need to continue listening and pay attention to our surroundings until the day of Jesus’ return (see Revelation 19:11-16; Matthew 24:29-31; 25:31; Titus 2:13; Colossians 3:4; Revelation 1:7) and the ‘morning star’ rises in our hearts. Even though this verse is often translated as “morning star” it is actually the Greek word ‘phōsphoros’ meaning “light bringer”[1] (or day star, the Greeks assigned the name to the planet Venus, there are several verses in the Bible that refer to a morning or day star, see Isaiah 14:12; Revelation 2:28; 22:16), however, regardless of how you want to render this verse, Peter is definitely referring to Jesus rising in our hearts. Jesus’ return will definitely have a positive effect in our lives and hearts!
1:20 knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation.
This verse begins with another variation of the Greek word for knowledge, here it is referring to something we not only know but also understand to be true.[2] We are to know that prophecy from Scripture does not come from man, and it is not to be taken or interpreted away from Scripture (see Ezekiel 13:1-7; Jeremiah 23:9-25). This flies in the face of those who write non-Biblical applications of Scriptural prophecy such as books like the “Bible Codes,” or those that get involved in date setting of Jesus’ return.
Anyone who has studied prophecy understands that the interpretation of prophecy can be problematic (just read Isaiah 9 as an example). Throughout the years there have been many good scholars that have developed guidelines on how to interpret Biblical prophecy, some of these include: 1) follow context of the verse; 2) when possible use literal interpretation (the Bible always interprets related prophecy literally); 3) if possible determine how it was interpreted when first given (the original audience); 4) determine and use the meaning of the words and terms consistently, etc. In other words, those that have hijacked the Word of God and only teach their own personal interpretation of the Word and its prophecies, they are false prophets and teachers regardless if they are doing it intentionally or unintentionally, either way they are wrong in doing so.
1:21 For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.
Peter reminds us that Biblical prophecy was never produced by the will of man but was instead written by men that were obedient and wrote exactly what they were guided to write by the Holy Spirit (see 1 Corinthians 2:10-16). Before Peter goes into the subject of discussing false teaching, false prophets and those that make deliberate attempts to mislead our thinking, he calls our attention to the fact that Biblical prophecy comes from God (the only source of truth and accuracy) and that no prophecy comes from man’s own will and should not be interpreted away from Scripture. So, don’t fall for false doctrine!
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[1] Zodhiates, S. (2000). The complete word study dictionary: New Testament (electronic ed.). Chattanooga, TN: AMG Publishers. Strong’s Greek No. 5459
[2] Zodhiates, S. (2000). The complete word study dictionary: New Testament (electronic ed.). Chattanooga, TN: AMG Publishers. Strong’s Greek No. 1097