16 For we did not follow cleverly devised stories when we told you about the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ in power, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. 17 He received honor and glory from God the Father when the voice came to him from the Majestic Glory, saying, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.” 18 We ourselves heard this voice that came from heaven when we were with him on the sacred mountain.

   19 We also have the prophetic message as something completely reliable, and you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. 20 Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation of things. 21 For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

Why do we come here? We come to worship again and again together to be reminded of what we already know, and we come to go a little deeper into the word of God, because we know that we want the word of God to penetrate a little more deeply into our hearts and minds.

In our text, Peter answers an obvious but unrecorded question. Let me ask it, and perhaps Peter’s words will be clearer: “Aren’t the stories in the Bible just made up? Isn’t it all just pious fiction?

In his Second Letter, the Apostle Peter makes several points about the truth of Scripture and about the inspiration of Scripture, including warnings about false teachings, false gospels, and false prophets. But here he makes us understand that our attitude about the word of God (with a small “w”) is entirely based on our trust in the Word of God (with a capital “W”). That’s right: How you and I trust and believe in Scripture, in the Holy Bible, is directly connected to how you and I trust and believe in Jesus Christ.

What we don’t follow, Peter assures us, is “cleverly devised stories,” or in Greek, “sophisticated myths” about Jesus. The Gospel is the simple truth of what God did for his people through the God-Man, Jesus Christ.  

Follow Peter’s train of thought: Jesus Christ came in power. He came performing powerful miracles—one of the first of these was healing Peter’s wife’s mother in Mark chapter 1. But besides the powerful and convincing proof of the miracles, Jesus also came with powerful words. His answers to questions and even accusations were perfect. His parables teach the way God gathers us into his kingdom and they teach us important lessons for Christian living—both warnings and encouragements. Also, Jesus’ powerful presence was a gospel lesson all in itself.

Take the example Peter uses: the transfiguration. This is the festival we’re observing today, remembering the day when Jesus was revealed in all his glory to Peter, John and James, and the disciples were enveloped in the Glory of the Lord, and didn’t want to ever leave.

If you had experienced a time when you saw in person two men who had died or gone to heaven more than a thousand years ago as Peter did, don’t you think you would probably say something about it? What they looked like, sounded like—even smelled like—and what they said? If this were a sophisticated myth you can bet we would have heard all sorts of things from those two ancient believers—but Peter is reporting what he saw, and the simple truth is this: Compared to the transfigured Jesus Christ, even Moses and Elijah pale, and are hardly even worth a mention.

Why? Because of who else spoke. God the Father spoke from out of the Glory of the Lord, which Peter calls “the Majestic Glory.” And God the Father’s assessment of Jesus was: “This is my Son, whom I love. With him I am well pleased.”

I want to stay on track with Peter’s point, but let’s take a quick look at those three statements from God the Father. First: “This is my Son.” If ever you hear someone trying to stir up doubt as to whether or not Jesus ever claimed to be God—bring them here to the Mountain of Transfiguration and let them listen to God the Father say it. Because if for some reason they want to doubt Jesus, will they doubt God the Father, too? That’s a whole different problem.

Second, God says, “Whom I love.” Jesus wasn’t just the object of the Father’s love then and there, but he is eternally, continually and forever loved by his Father. This is their relationship in eternity, and it reminds us of who Jesus is. He is not merely a man, but he is truly and eternally God, the Second Person of the Trinity—our Redeemer.

Finally, the Father says, “In him I am well pleased.” The Father is always pleased with his Son. Everything Jesus does and did is in accord with the Father’s will. Even the hard moment in the Garden of Gethsemane when Jesus asked that if possible, the cup of his suffering would not have to be drunk and endured by our Lord—this too shows that he submitted to the Father’s will perfectly, because in his prayer he showed how difficult that was, but in his actions he showed his love and our salvation.

This cuts deeply into our hearts. How could we doubt that the word of God is from God? And yet there are places in the Bible where some people wish God had said something else, or where some people wish God had not drawn such a bold line across certain sins. This is because fallen man wants to have his way. The sinner says to God, “I want what I want, and I’m going to pretend or wish that you didn’t even say it’s a sin.”

But the forgiven sinner says, “Thank you, God, for condemning my sin. If it weren’t for you, I would still be stuck in my temptation and I wouldn’t even know how bad off I was.” God spoke through Moses, and we don’t like to listen to Moses. God spoke through Elijah and the other prophets, and we don’t like to listen to the prophets. Then God sent Moses and Elijah to comfort and encourage Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration, and the sinful heart still wants to doubt. So God the Father spoke, then and there, and in the same sentence he condemned our sin, struck down our questions, held up our Savior, and abolished our doubt.

Peter says, “We ourselves heard this voice.” And he means all six of them who were on the mountain: Peter, James, John, Moses, Elijah, and Jesus, too. All of them are the “we” who heard the Father speak.

This is the heavenly Father’s patience with us, that even though we sometimes doubt or wish for things that don’t line up with his will, he comes to us in his holy word and preaches his will once again, so we will know it and recognize it and repent of our sins that fight against it and worship Jesus who kept it perfectly in our place.

And where do we go from here? Peter pushes us right back into the library of the 66 Books: “We have the prophetic message,” he says. The Bible is God’s holy word, spoken by God through men as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. This is what divine inspiration is, the way the Bible got written. It’s not that the Holy Spirit sat on the shoulder of Peter and the other men who wrote, whispering in their ears so that they would take dictation. Not, it’s that the Holy Spirit allowed the Bible’s authors to use their own grammar and language to proclaim God’s word to you and me.

And this, Peter says, is the prophetic message. A light shining in the dark place of our sin and uncertainty, telling exactly what God the Father wants us to know.

This is why we come here. This is why we worship together, praise God together, listen and pray together. God wants us to build one another up with his word, so that we will be all the more certain day by day. So that doubt will be swept out, so that troubled hearts and minds will be comforted and reassured. So that questions will be answered from the place where truth speaks uninterrupted, uncorrupted, and undisrupted by the devil and the corruption of sin.

Know that Jesus Christ is truly your Savior, and that the inspired word of God is witness to that. Peter heard it. John heard it. James heard it. Moses was there to hear it. Elijah was there to hear it. And Jesus heard it too, with his own ears—and he didn’t shrug it off or say that the Father didn’t know what he was talking about. No, he said as they were coming down the mountain: The Son of man will suffer and die, and be raised from the dead. This is your salvation, speaking to you. “We have seen his glory,” and God the Father bears witness to it forever. Amen.