The Divine Origin of Scripture

I kind of labeled this since I decided to do it for everybody, since you haven't been with us in 2 Peter. We're in chapter one of 2 Peter, the last three verses. So they talk about, this is one of the verses in scripture, there are several verses, and actually there's a lot, you know, if you had a complete study of how do we get the Bible, this would be one of the key verses, or set of verses. This would be 2 Peter chapter one, 19 through 21. So we're gonna talk about those verses today. But as a precursor to that, if you have your Bibles with you, I'll let this kind of go back.

A key event that happened that led up to these verses were Peter, James, and John were on the Mount of Transfiguration with the Lord Jesus. And you know, that was an incredible account. That's actually, that is talked about in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. And it talks about that the Lord was transfigured before them, and actually Moses and Elijah appeared with him, and they were talking with him.

And that's where Peter has this great statement. He says, Lord, this is Peter, the Apostle Peter, always quick on his feet, not too sharp on his mouth, but anyway, he says, Lord, it's good that we're here, right, with you guys. He says, if you wish, I'll make you three tabernacles, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah. And, but then at that moment, it says, while he was still speaking, while Peter was still speaking, a bright cloud overshadowed them.

Behold, a voice out of heaven said, this is my beloved son, with whom I am well pleased. Listen to him. And basically, Peter, James, and John all fell to the ground. And Jesus came to them and said, get up, do not be afraid. At that point they saw no one else except the Lord Jesus. And he told them not to tell about this story until after the resurrection.

So that's kind of what we're going to see as we look through these verses here. All right. So actually this fits in, as I was talking about, this is the last three verses. And this is the outline from Constable. So we're going to look at the previous three verses. 16 through 18, which Andrew did a great job last week on. We're going to look at those verses and then we're going to start into 19 through 21. So last week, and this section is labeled the faithfulness of the apostles. So it starts, so Peter says here, and notice he uses the word we, and I believe you could say that was certainly Peter, it's the apostles, Peter, James, and John, and in some cases it's going to be the we will include us as believers.

It says, and he's really testifying to the fact that the apostles didn't just get the information that they told people about and they wrote in their epistles, in their letters. They weren't just something they sort of said, hey, I have a great story to tell. God had a plan and a purpose in using these men. So he's gonna talk about that here. It says, for we did not follow cleverly devised tales that we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. But we were eyewitness to his majesty. So it seems he's referring to this event I just read about.

For when he, Jesus Christ, received honor and glory from God the Father, such as the utterance, as this was made to him by the majestic glory, this is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased. And we ourselves heard this utterance made from heaven, and we were with him on the holy mountain. So we went through that last week, we stayed through this, there's a lot of great things, but I just wanted to kind of go back and review that to get us lined up for the verses for today. So for today's verses, it says, so we have, so the we here, I think we can put ourselves in there, every believer in the Lord Jesus Christ can put his name in there.

For we have the prophetic word made more sure to which we should do well to pay attention, as to a lamp shining in a dark place until the day dawns and the morning star arises in your heart. But know this first of all, that no prophecy of scripture is a matter of one's own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever made by an act of the human will but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God. All right, so we're just gonna, as my usual practice, we're gonna kinda just go through each one of those verses and try to understand what's being said here.

Okay, so the first clause here is, We, and I said this could be, this is certainly the apostles and believers as well. We have, this is the word echo, to have and to hold, implying continually possessing. As we possess, as we hold God's word, we have a prophetic word. We have the prophetic word.

We're gonna define that later on here in a bit. It's called Made More Sure. And Made More Sure, actually, in the construction of the, you know, this is the diagramming stuff. You know, if you look, it's actually what's called a subject complement. It describes what we have. We have a prophetic word, Made More Sure.

So the two questions that come up are, what is the prophetic word, and what does it mean to be made more sure? Okay, prophetic. of a relating to prophecy proceeding from a prophet. You know, before I get into this, look at this, you know, when you think of a prophet, what do you think of? You think of, you know, you think of maybe Elijah, you think of someone in the Old Testament that, remember in the Old Testament, a prophet, could a prophet be 50% right? Could he be 75% right? No, God said he had to be 100% right. And actually, if he wasn't, in those days, he didn't stay around too long. He was a goner. So he had to be 100% right.

So this word prophecy, that's what you think of, that's what comes to your mind. But actually in scripture, it's used both of foretelling and speaking forth of God's word. So these are notes from Vine's dictionary, which I use quite a bit. I have it on the computer. It's a great source. So basically, prophecy, the speaking forth of the mind and counsel of God. And the two parts, pro and to speak, speak forth.

And so through much of the Old Testament, it's purely predictive. And that verse in Micah is one we do at Christmastime a lot, talks about, you know, from you Bethlehem, Ephrathah, from you one will go forth to me who is ruler in Israel. His going forth are from long ago, from the days of eternity. So that prophecy was given by Micah before Christ ever entered the scene, before we ever, but that prophet, so that's an idea of telling the future.

In this declaration of which cannot be known by the natural means, if you think about it, think about like, how about another, we don't think so much as Moses being a prophet, but he was a prophet, he spoke God's word, right? He talked about things that none of us could know.

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. How do you know that? I mean, you know, and that's, you know, the book we have, the Bible, is a miraculous book. It's a book that no one, no human could author. But God used human authors, and that's what these verses are gonna tell us about. He used human beings to get his message out, and he did it without error.

And that's the part that some people really struggle over. But I think as you come to read his word and understand his word, and as you come to know him as your savior, you realize that that has to be true. Otherwise, you're counting upon men's recollection. Well, this is not men's recollection.

This is God's word that he allowed men to pen, and he did it in a way that it's 100% without error. In the original language, I'm always gonna add that. Okay, so let's go on here with these notes about prophecy. So with the completion of the canon of scripture, when all the books were completed, now we have a verse that we're gonna cover here in Corinthians here that talks about that the gift of prophecy will go away, it's not needed anymore. We didn't need to have special men as prophets because God's word is now completed. So prophecy will at some point, it has, it's been completed.

And in this place, this is from Vine again, in this place a teacher has taken the place of the prophet. And the message the prophet was was a direct revelation of the mind of God for that occasion. The message of the teacher is gathered from the complete revelation of God's word. And that's why it's so important when we teach God's word that we look at the we look at particular section, that we look at all the other relating material about that topic.

Because then we're more assured that what we're saying is correct. And then lastly, I like what McGee adds, and this is kind of an easy way to think of it, when you see the prophetic word written now, that means basically the entire word of God. So when we have this verse that says, so we have this prophetic word, made more sure is talking about having the entire Word of God made more sure. So let's talk about made more sure. This is the idea of steadfast, firm steadfast. Actually the Amplified Bible has it made firmer still. So basically, and this is from, I've forgotten who this is from. Maybe this is still from Vine, possibly.

What is meant here is not the comparison between the prophecies of the Old and New Testament, but the confirmation by our Lord Jesus Christ. And if you think about it, when he was transfigured on the Mount of Transfiguration and he interacted with the prophets, you know, Moses and Elijah, he was confirming that what was written about those people, they only had the Old Testament at that point, was true. It validated himself as well as the scriptures. Constable has this to say, he says, the transfiguration confirms a word of the Old Testament prophets concerning the deity of Christ. So I think the made more sure Christ has made his coming as a man and dying on the cross has made more sure God's word.

So now the next part of the verse is, to which you do well to pay attention, or inner linear has it, You do well in paying attention to it, the word. And well is the idea of well or good, right or suitable. And paying attention is to hold, signifies to turn one's attention to. In Hebrews it says, for this reason we must pay closer attention to what we have heard so that we do not drift away from it.

And I think we all find this as we look at God's Word. If we don't stay, quote, current, it's amazing. It's amazing how doubts come into our mind, even about the slightest thing. As we stay closer to God's Word, we hear God's Word more often, we interact with God's Word, that in itself, lifts us up and encourages us. So that's why this, we do well to pay attention is given here. And the next part here, to a lamp shining in a dark place. So dark here is the idea, you look at the word dark and you think, I kind of see that, God's word is like a light, and we're gonna see that in just a second.

But this dark place is more than just dark, it's actually arid. It's murky, it's not a very friendly place. And if you think about that, certainly it seems like our world is becoming more and more, it's not a very friendly place to be around. It's not only dark in the sense of not understanding about the Lord Jesus, it's actually desolate and without life.

So there's a verse that we all know, Psalm 119 says, verse 105, for your lamp I'm sorry, for your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. And then in John it says, I'm writing a new commandment to you, which is true in him and in you. because darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining. And this is a wonderful thing. As we read through scripture we see multiple times about, and that's one of the many attributes of our Savior.

He is light and in Him is no darkness at all. He is the bread of life. He's light. He's love. There's a whole bunch of words that describe our Savior. Light is one of these. So as we come to know Him as our Savior, we realize that He is the light illuminating our path, as that Psalmist says, and then His light is already shining. His truth is out there shining. And we are to pay attention to that. Okay, so now we come to the last phrase. And this last phrase is, I found it difficult, and actually I wasn't the only one.

Until the day dawns and the morning star arises in your hearts. I wish that little word until. So I'm gonna give you my take on this, and I welcome your comments, really. Write me an email, talk to me. Okay, until is the idea meaning unto, as long as. making a continuous of action up to a time of another action. You say, I'm gonna do this until something happens. That's how we would use it probably.

So the first part is the day dawns. Here's a verse that talks about the day. It says, the night is almost gone. The day is near. Therefore, let us lay aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light. You know, so much of scripture is, it looks at Man's truth, man's wisdom is darkness, and it is darkness. And the world system controlled by Satan, that is darkness. But what we have is our Savior who is light, who's illuminating that.

And the morning star arises in your heart. So morning star. You know, there's organizations called Morning Star for ladies, I think. Anyway, I went back and looked up the definition of morning star. And this is actually a study unto itself. morning star is a name that the Greeks assigned to the planet Venus during the time which it appears west of the Sun and consequently rises before the Sun ushers in the light of day so imagine this I actually have not seen this I probably I'm not much of an astronomer astronomer I've looked I look I like to look at the pictures and stuff I haven't actually I guess if we were to go out on a clear day and you look before sunrise, you will see what appears as a star, which is actually Venus, and it will rise. It will come out of the horizon and rise up. And that will kind of give you a signal that the sunlight is coming. The light of day is coming behind it. So the people of past times, they had lots of time to look at the sky. They didn't have YouTube, Zoom. They didn't have TVs. They didn't have laptops. They could look at the sky.

And with a naked eye, you can see this happening. So another question is, morning star arises in your hearts. So first of all, in this context, what is the morning star? Well, the Lord has helped us out here, as He always does. He's faithful. It says in Revelation 22.16, I, Jesus, am the root and descendant of David, the bright morning star. So the Lord Jesus Christ, in this context here, He is the morning star. And it says, He's arising in your hearts. So in your heart, He's arising in your hearts.

So here's a verse that kind of hopefully sheds some light on this, 2 Corinthians 4.6, And then thanks to Andrew, he sent me this gentleman Dent's little dissertation on Morningstar.

It turned out not to be, it was 33 pages, this PDF file, and I thought, oh boy, 33 pages, Andrew. I even complained on Wednesday about it to him. I apologize, Andrew. Actually, it was only like six pages or five pages that talked about the Morning Star. So it was actually less.

And it was, anyway, the comment I like best about what he had to say, he says, The moment Christ has arisen as a morning star in our hearts, the day for us has dawned, and knowing ourselves as children of the day, we live in the light of the glory and rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. So on one level, on one level, let's just put the until aside for a second, on one level, We already have them. We have the Lord Jesus. Christ is in us, scripture says. Christ in us, the hope of glory. We have the Lord Jesus Christ in our hearts. And the day has dawned because we're now a new creation in Christ.

So at one level, without the until, we already got this. But with the until, what does that mean? And that's the part that I struggled with, and I wasn't the only one. So as you might guess, you can find all kinds of people with all kinds of thoughts.

The one I like best, and I didn't actually build a chart for that, but it talks about the fact that if you think about the crisis coming for us again at the rapture, And so the rapture, and you kind of think, okay, the morning star rising in your hearts. The day is dawning and the morning star is rising in our hearts. How does that fit with the rapture?

And I don't actually, you know... I can't give any great words about that, but it seems like that's the closest thing. Some people think it's his second coming and power and great glory, but of course we're with him. The church is with him at that point. So it seems like the rapture is a possibility because it does have this conditional thing, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. So that's my, so I have two aspects here. One, we already have, the day has dawned for us. We have the Lord Jesus. He's our morning star. We already have that as a believer. But there's an aspect, which Peter wanted to communicate, that there's a future aspect, it seems like, that the day dawning and the morning star rising in our hearts. And it seems like the rapture is probably the closest that seems to fit.

So I welcome your comments. Please, if you haven't, you know, actually, we have class next week. Let us know next week. Zoom in and let me know what you think. Okay, so that finishes that. I didn't want to get too bogged down with this, because you could spend a lot of time. Okay, so let's go on. Verse 20, let me just get my notes here up to speed. Okay, verse 20.

But know this, first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one's own interpretation. So once again, remember what we said about prophecy. That's the entire Word of God. So what, you know, Peter's speaking particular of his situation, but I think it applies, it certainly applies to all Scripture. But know this first of all, or the Amplified has it, yet first you must understand this. So it's very important to understand this about the Scripture that we have, the Bible that we have. Every prophecy of Scripture is not of one's own interpretation. So the complete subject here is every prophecy, the entire Word of God, is not of one's own interpretation. Okay, so let's look at that interpretation. Of one's own.

So what this is saying is that the scriptures that we have are not, as we look at the men that God chose to bring his word to us, they weren't what Moses wrote in the first five books of the Bible. They weren't his pet ideas. I have some ideas about creation. I think it was this way, or I think it was that way. No, it wasn't anything of his own private interpretation that didn't come into the picture.

So, as you'll see, God wants to rule out things that we might have objection to. Well, Moses, he put in his pet stories about creation. He liked the thing about the animals in the ark. That was one of his pet stories, and he just thought that up. No, that actually happened.

That's actually what God wanted to communicate, and Moses didn't add his own private feelings about that. of one's own interpretation, and the idea is to explanation, to solve, explain. And so Vine says, the writers of Scripture did not put their own construction upon the God breathed words they wrote. And then Weiss says, In verse 20, the apostle explains what he means by the expression, private interpretation. And if you look at other translations, they will render this passage rather than one's own, they'll say private. And that's kind of what that word means, it's his own, it's a private idea. The meaning of interpretation of the prophet does not come for the writer himself but from the Holy Spirit.

So that's God's point in giving us these verses is to show us that these things were not allowed in the pending of his word that we have. Okay, let's go on to 21. for no prophecy of scripture was ever made by act of the human will." Boy, I mean, these are not like, he doesn't say, well, 99.5% or 70, you know, none, zero, this is it. No prophecy. So this verse gives us more details. So the first part is no prophecy was ever made by act of the human will.

So man's will, so you say, well, how in the world does this happen? I mean, it hurts my head. Are they like, they go into a closet, okay, I am now going to do scripture in the beginning, you know, was it like that? No. No, apparently they wanted to write about that, and God gave them the information, and they wrote it, and Moses actually was there for a good part of that. He knew about that. He was eyewitnesses to that in many cases. But it made sense, and he did it in a loving way. And the last part of this verse is gonna tell us about that.

So no prophecy was ever made by act of the human will. was ever made, brought out, or ever uttered, and that's what's called the aorist tense, past point, fact, passive voice, by act of the human will. So the will here is spoken of emotion, man's desire, his desire wasn't in there.

I read some comedy that said that some of these writers, that they needed some extra money, right? They were kind of short on cash. Hey, I know what I'll do. I'll write a Bible book. I need some extra cash. No, it didn't happen that way. I mean, it's just all kinds of things you can make up. Or, I have a good story to tell. That didn't happen.

None of that, so God rules out all these things that human, what we do as human beings think, well, that's why they wrote that. No, they wrote it because God wanted that message to be put forth. So this last part is really a cool part. This kind of gives us a little insight into how God operated with these men. It doesn't tell us the total picture. There's other verses that help us with that. but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God. So that but is a sharp contrast.

And so actually what we find here is that in some translations, and I didn't really search all this out, but in some translations, the Darby translation, King James that I found, they had the word holy men. I thought that was kind of good because these men, yes, they were men like us, with the same kind of makeup as we are, but God had, they were holy men, holy in the sense they were set apart for a purpose of writing scripture. He set them apart, like he set apart people to build a tabernacle. Mike's going through an exodus of building the tabernacle. Men were set apart, they had certain skills to build the things of the tabernacle. So God set them apart for a purpose, and that's what holy in the sense means. I thought it was a better, spoke from God, past point fact, being carried along by the Holy Spirit. So what does being carried along by the Holy Spirit mean?

So I have a couple ideas here. being carried along. So the first idea is the idea of motion, to bear, to bear with the idea of motion, to bear along, to carry about. And actually there's a verse that talks about this in Isaiah. They carried their riches on the backs of their donkeys. This is a, you know, the insight can be gotten in Scripture by looking at the Greek translation of the Old Testament and see what words they use. So this is this word, bear along, being carried along, carrying along their riches. So one person I read talked about how he kind of pictured God with Moses or Paul or whoever it might be, carrying them along, like he would carry a baby. He carried them along to where he wanted them to go.

But the better picture, I think, because it's actually in the passive voice here, this verse in the passive voice, is to be born along as a ship before the wind being driven. And in Acts we see, Dr. Luke writes here, he says, the ship, and I cut a bunch of parts out, the ship was unable to head against the wind. We let it drift, and we're borne along. It's the idea that we can't fight the wind, so we'll just turn the ship around, and we'll just let it take us where we're gonna go. So God took these men, he carried them along, In grace and His love, He carried them along to write the words of Scripture. To me, that helps me understand, okay, God did this in a loving way.

He didn't force them. We still see their personalities. If you're a Greek scholar or a Hebrew scholar, you can see the personalities of many of these men in Scripture as they write, as they pen Scripture. Their personality wasn't impacted, but God carried them to the end result of writing His word.

So I think that's a beautiful part, being carried along or being born along. Okay, a couple of last thoughts here. And it's by the Holy Spirit, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God. So basically, Zodiaty has shared here, true prophecy conceived in the mind of God was brought forth or executed not by man, but by the Holy Spirit who prompted the holy men to speak. And then Schaeffer has, born along indicates the fact that the Spirit so wrought in holy men of God as to secure through them an errant record of his mind.

So we have a word, we have God's word, and I like what J. Vernon McGee says about this. He actually points something out. If you think about, some people are kind of, they look at scripture and they want miracles. Boy, miracles are wonderful. I want to see a miracle.

Well, if you think about it, the Bible we hold in our hand is a miracle because God claims that that's his word without error in the original language. Now, you might argue different translations have different words, and I use that a lot. I use the words I think better represent the original. but it's his word without error.

And McGee has this, he says, the word of God is the only physical miracle that we have from God in this hour in which we live. The only physical miracle. And we're gonna have a physical miracle, we have a physical book with words on it, right? It's not some thought, the words are there. And we're gonna have, when he comes for us, we're gonna have another miracle when we're taken out of here, when we're raptured. It's amazing. God's Word is amazing. Hopefully you get excited about God's Word from this message.

We're going to carry on. This ends chapter 1 in 2 Peter and it carries on with more topics. And there's actually one other verse that, I'll close with this verse, and it supports the idea of God's Word. In 2 Timothy 3.16, The first part says, and all Scripture is inspired by God. Or better, all Scripture is God-breathed. God breathes out His Word. He's breathed life into man. He's breathed life into His Word. And we have the very revelation of Him in His Word. Okay, let's close in prayer. Dear Father, we thank You so much, Lord. And we thank You for our time today, Father. Thank You for the wonderful Word that we have, the precious Word of of God that you preserve for us without error Lord and we may you know to us it seems like that we can't think of any anything here in our world that's without error it seems everything but we know we trust you that you have said it and declared it and you asked us to believe it that it is true that we have the very God-breathed word we ask it in Christ's name Amen