Bible Commentaries
2 Peter 2

Verses 16-21

XXIII

IMPORT OF THE TRANSFIGURATION OF JESUS AND FALSE TEACHERS

2 Peter 1:16-2:21

This discussion commences with 2 Peter 1:16, and the item of the analysis is the import of the transfiguration of Jesus. The reader will find the historical account of the transfiguration in Matthew 17; Mark 8; and Luke 9, and he should very carefully study (the better way is as it is presented in Broadus’ Harmony) the account of the transfiguration.

I will refer very briefly to the history. Just after the great confession of Peter recorded in Matthew 16:18, when Christ said, "Upon this rock I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it," he began to show plainly to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and be put to death, whereupon Peter protested. He was not yet ready to accept the idea of Christ dying. In order to fix the right view of the death of Christ upon the minds of these disciples that were still clinging to the Jewish notion of the kingdom, Christ took three of the disciples, Peter, James, and John, and went upon a mountain. Before he went he stated that there were some of them standing there who would never taste death until they should see the Son of man coming in his kingdom.

It has always been a difficult thing with commentators to explain how it was that he could say that some people that heard him would never taste of death until they saw him coming in his kingdom. The transfiguration, according to Peter, was the fulfilment of that promise. Peter says here in this connection, "We did not follow cunningly devised fables when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For he received from God the Father honor and glory, when there was borne such a voice to him by the majestic glory, This is my beloved Son) in whom I am well pleased. And this voice we ourselves heard borne out of heaven, when we were with him in the holy mount." Mark it well, Peter says that when he preached the final advent of Christ, he was not following cunningly devised fables. He was preaching something of which he had, in a certain sense, been an eyewitness. The question, then, is in what sense was the transfiguration a second coming of Christ? The answer to it is that it was a miniature representation, or foreshadowing, of the majesty and power of the second advent. In other words, there passed over Christ’s person a transfiguration, a manifestation of his glory, such glory as he will have when he comes again. That glory radiates from Christ. It was the kind of glory in which he will come to judge the world.

In the next place, when he comes he will come exercising two great powers: One will be resurrection power, and the other will be the changing of the living saints in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, and so that transfiguration scene presented those two thoughts in miniature, in that, Moses appeared to them, who died, and Elijah appeared to them who did not die but was changed in a moment. So that Moses represents the class who died and who, at the second coming of Christ, will be raised from the dead; and Elijah represents the class at the second advent of Christ, who will, in the twinkling of an eye, be changed and fitted for their heavenly estate.

It is remarkable that, while Peter looked upon the death of Christ with abhorrence, Moses and Elijah appeared there to talk with him about his death. It was the most significant event of the world, the death of Christ. Moses was the lawgiver, and Elijah the prophet. Now, in that sense the transfiguration represented the final coming of our Lord, and Peter quotes it for that purpose.

Now we come to 2 Peter 1:19: "And we have the word of prophecy made more sure; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a lamp shining in & dark place, until the day dawn, and the daystar arise in your hearts." That describes the nature and value of prophecy. Prophecy foreshows a coming event, and its value is compared to a lamp shining in a dark place and to the morning star which heralds the coming dawn. That lamp is a long ways better than nothing. If one were, in the night, in an unknown country, he would like very much to have a lantern. The lantern would not illuminate the whole landscape, but it would illumine a small space right near about. It would not illumine all the course at one time, but would show the one how to take the next step. And as the lantern moves with him would guide him step by step. So the morning star, while not the day itself, foretells its speedy approach and only pales in the brighter light of the dawning. Now, as that lamp ceases to be valuable after the day comes, so when the fulfilment of the prophecy comes, then what was dimly understood is thoroughly understood.

Peter’s precise thought seems to be this: "I was an eyewitness of the majesty and power of the final advent. But prophecy is surer than sight, though its light be but as a lantern in the night, or as the daystar. You do well to take heed to prophecy." It is on a line with the thought of Abraham, in speaking to the rich man: "Moses and the prophets are better testimony than Lazarus, risen from the dead."

In other words, Peter’s idea was this: "It is true I saw the second advent unfolded in the transfiguration, but you are not dependent on what I saw. You have for your guidance the unerring word of God. Prophecy now holds the right of way. It is all the light we have. But its fulfilment is coming, which is perfect light. Then you will not need my testimony of what I saw, nor prophecy itself. The dawn is better light than lanterns and morning stars."

In 2 Peter 1:20-21, the closing paragraph of this chapter, he sets forth the reason of the present value of prophecy and how alone it is to be interpreted.

1. It never came by the will of man.

2. Men wrote or spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.

3. It is not of man to interpret it. Only the illumination of the Holy Spirit, its author, can bring out its meaning.

This is one of the best texts in the Bible on inspiration. We have already seen that the prophets, under the influence of the Holy Spirit, foretold things to come, and then would search what time or manner of time these things would be, the date of it, and the circumstances of the date. They were moved to tell it just that way. They did not thoroughly understand it. It was a subject of their own contemplation and investigation, and was so to the angels. They can’t interpret the promises and the prophecies of God. They can only look into them, and as the church, in carrying out the will of God, unfolds his purposes, they can learn them by the unfolding, but they cannot know them beforehand.

2 Peter 2 of this letter is devoted to false teachers. The teachers here referred to are the Gnostics, and in the letter to the Ephesians and Colossians I have already explained the Gnostic philosophy; that, as a philosophy, it attempted to account for the creation, and for sin; that it claimed to have a subjective knowledge and was more reliable than the written word of God. That it made Christ a subordinate eon or emanation from God, and that inasmuch as sin resided in matter, one form in which this philosophy shaped itself was that there was no harm in any kind of sensual indulgencies. That the soul could not sin, and that the body was just matter, and so it made no difference if one did get drunk, or if he did go into all forms of lasciviousness and sensuality. Inasmuch as he is a child of God, he will be saved. One might do just whatever he pleased to do, since he is not under law at all, but free. Now, that was the philosophy, and, as explained in the other discussions, the method of this philosophy was not by public teaching, but by private teaching. They would come to families or to individuals and say to them: "Gnosticism is only for a cultured few, and we will initiate you into its mysteries at so much a head. Let the great body of common people come together in assemblies if they want to. You don’t need to go to church. You don’t need anything of that kind." That philosophy started in Proconsular Asia, and Peter is addressing his two letters to that section of the country. He says there were false prophets in the old times, and that there were false teachers among them, and in this letter and in Jude we have a very vivid description of these teachers and the errors of their teaching, and the most vivid description setting forth their doom. In 2 Peter 2, then, we have these false teachers presented as follows:

1. What they teach is false.

2. In their character they are lascivious or sensual.

3. They are covetous, they are teaching things in order to make money.

4. They despise dignities or dominion. They set at naught the apostolic offices of Paul and Peter; they disregard church government. A pastor doesn’t amount to anything; they are just like beasts that have no reason.

In other words, as a wolf follows his own blood lust, these men follow their instincts. They revel in the daytime. Then he sets them forth in pictures. He says they are wells or springs without any water in them. They are mists driven by the storm. They are like the dog that returneth to his vomit, and the sow that was washed, to her wallowing in the mire. These are very powerful descriptions. Nowhere in the Bible is such language used to describe the false teachers as in 2 Peter and in Jude. He then tells us about their methods. They come in privily. These are the abominable heresies they teach: the denial of the Lord, the subordinate place in which they put him, and his word, it makes no difference how one lives. They come offering liberty, when they themselves are the slaves of corruption. The whole chapter is devoted to them.

He replies to their teaching and of the life that follows such teaching by citing certain great facts. The first fact is that God has demonstrated in the history of the past that whosoever goes into heresy and teaches abominable doctrines shall certainly be punished, and fearfully punished, and he takes as his first example: "If God spared not angels when they sinned, but cast them down to hell and committed them to pits of darkness to be reserved unto judgment; if the angels, the bright shining spirits that stand around his throne, cannot escape sharp eternal and condign punishment, how can these men expect to escape?"

The next example that he cites is the case of the antediluvians. These people lived before the flood. They would not hear Enoch, they would not hear Methuselah, they would not hear Noah. They gave themselves up to this world. There were giants among them. The whole earth was filled with violence. There was no purity left upon the earth. Homes were defiled, honor lost. Woman’s name was held as an outcast thing, and they lived like wild beasts, and God swept that world away.

The next fact that he cites is the case of Sodom and Gomorrah. We find the account of it in Genesis, and reference to it in a number of the prophets, particularly Isaiah. Sodom and Gomorrah had a preacher, Lot. His righteous soul was vexed by the fearful crimes that he witnessed every day. They paid no attention to his warning. All of the cities of the plains were given up to the most abominable vileness of life, so shameful that I cannot speak about it. It would make a man blush to read it off by himself. It won’t do to talk about, even when men are talking to men. He says those cities were swallowed up in the wrath of God, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire, and on those three great facts – the punishment of the angels, the punishment of the antediluvians, the punishment of Sodom and Gomorrah, we do know that God can take care of his people and punish the wicked. He saved Noah, and he saved Lot. The others perished.

There is one other thought in the chapter that needs to be brought out. It is presented in 2 Peter 2:10-11: "Daring, selfwilled, they tremble not to rail at dignities: whereas angels, though greater in might and power, bring not a railing judgment against them before the Lord." Peter seems to refer to this remarkable passage in Zechariah 3:1: "And he showed me Joshua, the high priest, standing before the angel of Jehovah, and Satan standing at his right hand to be his adversary. And Jehovah said unto Satan: Jehovah rebuke thee, O Satan; yea, Jehovah that hath chosen Jerusalem, rebuke thee: is not this a brand plucked out of the fire? Now Joshua was clothed with filthy garments, and was standing before him saying: Take the filthy garments off of him. And unto him he said, Behold, I have caused thine iniquity to pass from thee, and I will clothe thee with rich apparel. And I said, let them set a clean mitre upon his head, etc."

There the high priest, Joshua, and Zerubbabel were endeavoring to rebuild the Temple and the case came up before God. The devil appeared as an accuser, and reviled the high priest, saying that those people were not worthy of restoration. The angel of the Lord says, "The Lord rebuke thee, Satan." He did not bring a railing accusation against him like the devil had brought against Joshua, but he says, "God rebuke thee." Now, says Peter, when the angel would not rail at Satan, not assuming to judge Satan, but said, "God rebuke thee, Satan," these men that he is discussing here, they rail at dignities. Here were these apostles whom God had appointed; here were these pastors of the church whom they disregarded, the discipline of the church that they set aside. They had no reverence for official position of any kind.

QUESTIONS

1. Where the history of the transfiguration?

2. What Peter’s interpretation of its meaning?

3. What thing in the transfiguration represented the majesty of the final advent?

4. What two things represented its power?

5. Elijah appeared in his glorified body. Did the appearance of Moses imply that he, too, was in a glorified body like Elijah’s, i.e., Never having tasted death, or in a risen body, and if neither, why?

6. What does Peter hold as surer and better evidence of the final advent than what he saw at the transfiguration?

7. In our Lord’s parable of the rich man and Lazarus, the word of God and prophecy is said to be better than what other thing?

8. In Psalm 19 why is the same word of God declared to be better than the light of nature?

9. What illustration does Peter employ to show the value of prophecy?

10. Did the prophets themselves always understand their prophecies?

11. Why is prophecy not of private interpretation?

12. How alone can it be interpreted?

13. Who the false teachers of 2 Peter 2?

14. What their heresies, (1) about our Lord? (2) about creation? (3) about sin? (4) what the effect of this teaching on the life? (5) what their method of teaching and motive? (6) what did they mean by "knowledge," and how did this supersede the word of God?

15. What great historic examples did Peter cite as proofs that God could punish the wicked and save the righteous?

16. Where alone do you find proof that Noah was a preacher?

17. To what historic occasion does Peter refer in 2 Peter 2:11?

18. What was "the way of Balaam" which these heretics followed (2 Peter 2:15)?

19. With what natural things does Peter compare these heretics?

20. How is their presence at the Christian feasts illustrated?

21. How will you show that 2 Peter 2:21 does not teach the final apostasy of real Christians?

Verse 15

VIII

BALAAM: HIS IMPORTANT PROPHECIES, HIS CHARACTER, AND HIS BIBLE HISTORY

Numbers 22-24; Numbers 31:8; Numbers 31:16; Deuteronomy 23:4-5; Joshua 13:22; Joshua 24:9-10; Micah 6:5; Nehemiah 13:2; Judges 1:2; 2 Peter 2:15; Revelation 2:14

These scriptures give you a clue to both Balaam’s history and character: Numbers 22-24; Numbers 31:8, and especially Numbers 31:16; Deuteronomy 23:4-5; Joshua 13:22; Joshua 24:9-10; Micah 6:5; Nehemiah 13:2; Judges 1:2; 2 Peter 2:15; and, most important of all, Revelation 2:14. Anybody who attempts to discuss Balaam ought to be familiar with every one of these scriptures.

Who was Balaam? He was a descendant of Abraham, as much as the Israelites were. He was a Midianite and his home was near where the kinsmen of Abraham, Nahor and Laban, lived. They possessed from the days of Abraham a very considerable knowledge of the true God. He was not only a descendant of Abraham and possessed the knowledge of the true God through traditions handed down, as in the case of Job and Melchizedek, but he was a prophet of Jehovah. That is confirmed over and over again. Unfortunately he was also a soothsayer and a diviner, adding that himself to his prophetic office for the purpose of making money. People always approach soothsayers with fees.

His knowledge of the movements of the children of Israel could easily have been obtained and the book of Exodus expressly tells that that knowledge was diffused over the whole country. Such a poem as Jacob’s dying blessing on his children would circulate all over the Semitic tribes, and such an administration as that of Joseph would become known over all the whole world, such displays of power as the miracles in Egypt, the deliverance at the Red Sea and the giving of the law right contiguous to the territory of Balaam’s nation make it possible for him to learn all these mighty particulars. It is a great mistake to say that God held communication only with the descendants of Abraham. We see how he influenced people in Job’s time and how he influenced Melchizedek, and there is one remarkable declaration made in one of the prophets that I have not time to discuss, though I expect to preach a sermon on it some day, in which God claims that he not only brought Israel out of Egypt but the Philistines out of Caphtor and all peoples from the places they occupied (Amos 9:7). We are apt to get a very narrow view of God’s government of the human race when we attempt to confine it to the Jews only.

Next, we want to consider the sin of Balaam. First, it was from start to finish a sin against knowledge. He had great knowledge of Jehovah. It was a sin against revelation and a very vile sin in that it proceeded from his greed for money, loving the wages of unrighteousness. His sin reached its climax after he had failed to move Jehovah by divinations, and it was clear that Jehovah was determined to bless these people, when for a price paid in his hand be vilely suggested a means by which the people could be turned from God and brought to punishment. That was about as iniquitous a thing as the purchase of the ballots in the late prohibition election in Waco, for the wages of unrighteousness. His counsel was (Numbers 31:16) to seduce the people of Israel by bringing the Moabitish and Midianite evil women to tempt and get them through their lusts to attend idolatrous feasts.

In getting at the character of this man, we have fortunately some exceedingly valuable sermon literature. The greatest preachers of modern times have preached on Balaam, and in the cross lights of their sermons every young preacher ought to inform himself thoroughly on Balaam. The most famous one for quite a while was Bishop Butler’s sermon. When I was a boy, everybody read that sermon, and, as I recall it, the object was to show the self-deception which persuaded Balaam in every case that the sin he committed could be brought within the rules of conscience and revelation, so that he could say something at every point to show that he stood right, while all the time he was going wrong.

Then the great sermon by Cardinal Newman: "The dark shadow cast over a noble course by standing always on the ladder of advancement and by the suspense of a worldly ambition never satisfied." He saw in Balaam one of the most remarkable men of the world, high up on the ladder and the way to the top perfectly open but shaded by the dark shadow of his sin. Then Dr. Arnold’s sermon on Balaam, as I recall, the substance being the strange combination of the purest form of religious belief with action immeasurably below it. Next the great sermon by Spurgeon with seven texts. He takes the words in the Bible, "I have sinned," and Balaam is one of the seven men he discusses. Spurgeon preached Balaam as a double-minded man. He could see the right and yet his lower nature turned him constantly away from it, a struggle between the lower and higher nature. These four men were the greatest preachers in the world since Paul. I may modestly call attention to my own sermon on Balaam; that Balaam was not a double-minded man; that from the beginning this man had but one real mind, and that was greed and power, and he simply used the religious light as a stalking horse. No rebuff could stop him long. God might say, "You shall not go," and he would say, "Lord, hear me again and let me go." He might start and an angel would meet him and he might hear the rebuke of the dumb brute but he would still seek a way to bring about evil. I never saw a man with a mind more single than Balaam.

I want you to read about him in Keble’s "Christian Year." Keble conceives of Balaam as standing on the top of a mountain that looked over all those countries he is going to prophesy about and used this language:

O for a sculptor’s hand,

That thou might’st take thy stand

Thy wild hair floating in the eastern breeze,

Thy tranc’d yet open gaze

Fix’d on the desert haze,

As one who deep in heaven some airy pageant aeea.

In outline dim and vast

Their fearful shadows cast

The giant forms of empires on their way

To ruin: one by one

They tower and they are gone,

Yet in the Prophet’s soul the dreams of avarice stay.

That is a grand conception. If he just had the marble image of a man of that kind, before whose eyes, from his lofty mountain pedestal were sweeping the pageants of mighty empires and yet in whose eyes always stayed the dreams of avarice. The following has been sculptured on a rock:

No sun or star so bright

In all the world of light

That they should draw to Heaven his downward eye:

He hears th’ Almighty’s word,

He sees the Angel’s sword,

Yet low upon the earth his heart and treasure lie.

That comes nearer giving a true picture of Balaam. That shows you a man so earth bound in his heart’s desire, looking at low things and grovelling that no sun or star could lift his eye toward heaven. Not even God Almighty’s word could make him look up, without coercion of the human will.

Now, you are to understand that the first two prophecies of Balaam came to him when he was trying to work divinations on God. In those two he obeys as mechanically as a hypnotized person obeys the will of the hypnotist. He simply speaks under the coercive power of God. In these first two prophecies God tells him what to say, as if a mightier hand than his had dipped the pen in ink and moved his hand to write those lines.

At the end of the second one when he saw no divination could possibly avail against those people, the other prophecies came from the fact that the Spirit of the Lord comes on him just like the Spirit came on Saul, the king of Israel, and he prophesied as a really inspired man. In the first prophecy he shows, first, a people that God has blessed and will not curse; second, he is made to say, "Let me die the death of the righteous and let my, last end – at death and judgment – be like his." That shows God’s revelation to that people. The second prophecy shows why that is so: "God is not a man that he should repent." "It is not worth while to work any divination. He has marked out the future of this nation." Second, why is it that he will not regard iniquity in Jacob? For the purpose he has in view he will not impute their trespasses to them. The prophecy stops with this thought, that when you look at what this people have done and will do, you are not to say, "What Moses did, nor Joshua did, nor David," but you are to say, "What God hath wrought!"

The first time I ever heard Dr. Burleson address young preachers, and I was not even a Christian myself, he took that for his text. He commenced by saying, "That is a great theme for a preacher. Evidently these Jews had not accomplished all those things. They were continually rebelling and wanting to go back, and yet you see them come out of Egypt, cross the Sea, come to Sinai, organized, fed, clothed, the sun kept off by day and darkness by night, marvellous victories accomplished and you are to say, ’What God hath wrought!’ "

When the spiritual power comes on him he begins to look beyond anything he has ever done yet, to messianic days. There are few prophecies in the Bible more far-reaching than this last prophecy of Balaam. When he says of the Messiah, "I shall see him but not now," it is a long way off. "My case is gone, but verily a star" – the symbol of the star and sceptre carried out the thought of the power of the Messiah. So much did that prophecy impress the world that those Wise Men who came right from Balaam’s country when Jesus was born, remember this prophecy: "We have seen his star in the east and have come to worship him."

He then looks all around and there are the nations before him from that mountain top, and he prophesies about Moab and Amalek and passes on beyond, approaching even to look to nations yet unborn. He looks to the Grecian Empire arising far away in the future, further than anybody but Daniel. He sees the ships of the Grecians coming and the destruction of Asshur and the destruction of Eber, his own people. Then we come to the antitypical references later.

If you want a comparison of this man, take Simon Magus who wanted to purchase the power of the Holy Spirit so as to make money. That is even better than Judas, though Judas comes in. Judas had knowledge, was inspired, worked miracles, and yet Judas never saw the true kingdom of God in the spirit of holiness, and because he could not bring about the kingdom of which he would be treasurer for fifteen dollars he sold the Lord Jesus Christ. Those are the principal thoughts I wanted to add.

QUESTIONS

1. Who was Balaam?

2. How did he obtain his knowledge of God?

3. What was the sin of Balaam?

4. What was the climax of his sin?

5. What five sermons on Balaam are referred to? Give the line of thought in each.

6. Give Keble’s conception of Balaam.

7. What was the testimony sculptured on a rock?

8. Now give your own estimate of the character of Balaam.

9. How do you account for the first two prophecies?

10. How do you account for the other two?

11. In the first prophecy what does he show, what is he made to say and what does that show?

12. Give a brief analysis of the second prophecy.

13. Of what does the third prophecy consist?

14. Give the items of the fourth prophecy.

15. How did his messianic prophecy impress the world?

16. When was this prophecy concerning Amalek fulfilled? Ana. In the days of Saul. (I Sam. 15).

17. Who was Asshur and what was his relation to the Kenites?

18. What reference here to the Grecians?

19. Who was Eber?

20. With what two New Testament characters may we compare?