By Way of Remembrance

Part 2. Conclusion of a two‑part consideration of 2 Pet.1

Faith, fortitude, knowledge, self‑control, piety, love; all these are the essential characteristics of the mature Christian and all these are necessary to the one who would lay claim to the distinction of being "established in the Present Truth," to use Peter’s expression in 2 Pet.1:12. Last issue’s instalment dwelt upon the necessity of developing these virtues (2 Pet.1:5‑8) and now Peter turns to the logical outcome, the Christian life that is lived in an atmosphere of positive knowledge of the purpose and Plan of God. That is why Peter here brings up his other salient factor, the being "established in the present truth." Quite a number of Christian reform movements during the past three centuries, breaking away from the old traditions and creeds, have designated their own new conception of the Faith, "Present Truth."

It is a correct description. In each case these reformers have advanced to another and higher level of Christian understanding than had formerly been attained, and so perceived the Divine purpose for mankind, and the place of Christian disciples of this present Age, more clearly than ever before. That level, to them, was "Present Truth," truth due for their guidance and instruction in their generation and lifetime. That was how Peter used the term. His converts had come from Judaism, the faith and understanding which had served Israel from the days of Moses fifteen hundred years previously. That faith was now out‑of‑date, superseded by the new gospel of Christ with its emphasis upon the call of the Church and putting aside the Mosaic Law. That, to them, was Present Truth, and Peter’s insistence was that they should always hold this new understanding in remembrance and not retrogress to elements of the former faith of Judaism. Paul, in a fine turn of rhetoric, called them "weak and beggarly elements," when he wrote to warn the Galatians against this very thing. "After that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage?" (Gal.4:9)

So, with us, if the faith which has given us an enhanced and loftier view of the Divine Plan in these latter days is indeed present truth to us in our day, "truth now due for the household of faith," as a one‑time familiar expression had it, then, like Peter’s converts in the First Century, we are in great need to hold these things in remembrance against the tendency to retrogress to older beliefs of lesser stature which were the norm before the Present Truth of this day and Age came into being. As generation succeeds

generation, and century succeeds century, it must be expected that Present Truth must advance into still higher levels of understanding; "still new beauties do we see, and still increasing light." It is not to be expected that the Spirit will lead us back to older traditionary beliefs which we discarded in past times. That is why the Apostle uses the word "established." We are to be "established in the present truth." The word means to be steadfast, made firm, place firmly. When Paul said, at the end, "I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded" (2 Tim.1:12) it was because he was, established in the then Present Truth. He had built his life and his life’s work around it, and it had not failed him. He knew, and therewith he was content. A century ago a certain band of Christians, having reason to separate from their former affiliation, organised themselves under the title "Standfast Bible Students." Their former comrades with whom they had differed rather mockingly dubbed them the "Stuckfast Bible Students," but they were not stuck fast. They had taken their stand for the principles of what they held to be Present Truth; in that faith they lived and, by now probably, in that faith they have all died and been gathered to their Lord. So with us all; we can and should go forward to enhanced understanding of the Divine ways and the Divine programme as fast as and to the extent that it is revealed to us, but we must not, dare not, retrogress.

"Believe in the LORD your God" cried good King Jehoshaphat as he led his unarmed people out to meet the military might of the invader, confident that the Lord would deliver. "So shall ye be established; believe his prophets, so shall ye prosper." (2 Chron.20:20) The Lord did deliver and Israel did prosper. But it was because they stood firmly on the basis of their faith, that they were the people of God and the Lord would not suffer them to be overthrown. So the Apostle Paul in the sixth chapter of Ephesians, exhorts his readers to take the whole armour of God wherewith they will be able to stand in the evil day; the first item of that armour which he mentions is the body protection of truth. A clear understanding of truth; up‑to‑date truth, present truth, is the first essential to withstanding the inroads of doctrinal error and consequent mal‑apprehension of the Divine Plan which Paul here calls the "fiery darts of the evil one." (Eph.6:16 ASV) Stand, having your loins girt about with truth.

Then there must be remembered our responsibility to those who will follow. We must be established in the present truth and hold in good remembrance the salient features of present truth because it is going to be our responsibility to pass these things on to those coming up behind. As we begin to lower the flaming torch because of failing strength it must be picked up and held aloft again by younger and more vigorous hands. "Other men laboured," said Jesus to his disciples "and ye are entered into their labours." (John 4:38) The disciples stood in the certainty of the present truth of their day only because faithful men before them had laid the foundation upon which that present truth was built. So with us today; we have to pass on to others that which we ourselves received from our forebears, enhanced and enriched by the contribution we ourselves and our generation have made. The Psalmist saw this clearly and expressed it in words of rare insight: "He established a testimony in Jacob, and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers, that they should make them known to their children: that the generation to come might know them, even the children which should be born, who should arise and declare them to their children." (Psa.78:5:6) Four generations through whom the truth descended but only because each generation was faithful to its mission. Are we in our day playing our part in this continuing witness?

We cannot do so unless we are certain of our ground. The hallmark of present truth is its certainty. "We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen." (John 3:11) When Luke prefaced his gospel with the address to his hypothetical friend Theophilus, he did so "that thou mightest know the certainty of those things, wherein thou hast been instructed." (Luke 1:4) So now Peter declaims "We have not followed cleverly devised myths, when we made known unto you the power and presence of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eye‑witnesses of his majesty...and this voice which came from heaven WE HEARD." (vv.16‑18*) This was the conviction which sustained Peter and John against the threats of the Sanhedrin "we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard" (Acts 4:20) and against that inflexibility their judges were silenced and impotent.

"Cleverly devised myths;" (ESV) there are plenty such, specious arguments based on worn‑out doctrines and out‑of‑date theologies, redolent of the traditions of the Dark Ages when the Bible was more or less a closed book to the people in general. A myth is a legend handed down from generation to generation getting more and more distorted in the process. The Truth is its opposite, the voice of Jesus and the testimony of his Apostles becoming ever more clear and understandable with each succeeding generation. What we witness to, said Peter, is based on what we have seen and heard with our own eyes and ears. We, in our day, here at this end of the dying Age, do not see and hear Jesus in the flesh with our literal eyes and ears, but we do see and hear him by our spiritual insight and hearing by means of the ministry of his Holy Spirit, and that is none the less real to us. If we have become established in the present truth and our faith and hope and perception is fully grounded so that we have the same certainty that Peter had then we also can say "We cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard." (Acts 4:20)

Thus we, as did Peter, can realise the power and presence of our Lord Jesus Christ. (v.16) In his case that presence was manifested in his earthly life, at that time, when they companied with him and learned of him and proclaimed the gospel of the kingdom at his behest. That power was the energy and authority with which they delivered the message to those who would listen. Jesus "taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes." (Matt.7:29) His words carried conviction because they stemmed from certainty. So it was, that, after the resurrection, "with great power gave the apostles witness of the resurrection." (Acts 4:33) And it was in the power and certainty of that conviction that the work of announcing the new Age then dawning, the Christian or Gospel Age, the time of the High Calling, was carried on by those early believers and resulted in the world‑wide establishment of the Christian Church.

Now in our own day the same thing is happening but this time the presence of the Lord is not that of his First Advent as at the time of Peter but his Second. But once again his power and presence is manifested to those who, by the Spirit this time, can see and hear. Once again it is true that "we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard." (Acts 4:20) Once again the message is the prelude to the dawn of a New Age—not the Age of the High Calling this time, but that of the Millennial reign and the calling to all, whosoever will, to take of the water of life freely. (Rev.22:17) Our Lord gave a vivid prophetic parable of this late happening in his story of the man coming back from a far country to find his faithful servants watching and ready for his coming. Because of their alertness, he assumed the role of a servant and came forth to serve them at the feast. Clearly a picture of a stage in the Church’s experience whilst still in the flesh; in no sense will our glorious Lord, supreme over all things in heaven and earth, fill the role of a servant to his glorified Church in the heavens. Just as Peter and the others, by the power of the Holy Spirit, were made aware of the new truths of the Christian Gospel, a veritable feast of things "new and old" (Matt.13:52) so at this end of the Age, in the dawn of the Second Advent, the "days of the Son of Man," the Lord comes to consult with his faithful ones to impart the same message that was given to Peter, things "old," but superadded to that, the "new" revelation of present truth regarding his return and the end of the rule of evil and his imminent manifestation to all the world and the establishment of his kingdom. All this constitutes the feast at which the Lord serves his own household and they, in turn, like Peter and the others, having thus "seen and heard," go out to blazon abroad the glad tidings of that imminent manifestation and kingdom.

Another picture of the same period is that narrated in Rev.14 where a crowned king is seen approaching earth upon a bright cloud, having in his hand a sharp (golden) sickle, with which He reaps the "harvest of the earth" (v.15)—the harvest of this Gospel Age, the gathering and resurrection of the Church. Only after this process is completed and the Bride has been united with the Bridegroom (Rev.19:7) will this Age progress to its consummation in the "winepress" of Rev.14:20 and final battle between good and evil of Rev.19. Then comes the revelation of Christ and his Church to all the world in the full establishment of the Millennial kingdom and the fulfilment of Paul’s words in Rom.8:19, "the earnest expectation of the creature (creation) waiteth for the manifestation of the Sons of God"—the Church.

Peter’s last legacy to the Church is nearly completed. He has but one more message to give, and this of greater moment to we who live now than it was to the believers of his own day. "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." (v.19) "More sure;" again there is the ring of certainty, of conviction. The word of prophecy, of teaching, is the Word of God, which lives and abides for ever. (1 Pet.1:23) We, in this our day, do not have the memory as did those early believers, of seeing and hearing Jesus in the flesh. We cannot even claim to have talked with and learned from those who themselves had seen and heard Jesus in the flesh. We are twenty centuries away from those times. But we do have something which those early believers never did have, the complete Scripture of those times. We have, not only the Old Testament which they did possess and know, but the New Testament which they never knew. And this, under the illumination and enlightenment given us by the Holy Spirit, is in very truth a light shining in a dark place, a lamp which illumines and marks out the way in which we shall go, and a source of instruction and inspiration to our minds. This, says Peter, is a sure and certain guide until the consummation of all things when our union with our Lord in the celestial realm is realised. Contrary to the rather unimaginative rendering in the A.V., Peter does not say that the day star is to arise in our hearts. Properly rendered "we do well that we take heed, in our hearts, to the sure word of prophecy, as unto a light shining until the day dawn and the day star arise." (The Emphatic Diaglott renders this phrase best by putting part of it in parenthesis.) So we have two important words, "take heed" and "until." Here we are back in the realm of remembrance and certainty. We have the "more sure" Word of God as our guide and counsellor; we do well to take heed of that word continually whilst we are in this dark world as to a light illumining our way, until the day dawn and the day star arise. Here we are again in the realm of the Second Advent. The "day dawn" is the first glimmering of light betokening the imminence of Millennial day, the Day of resurrection and enlightenment for which the whole world is waiting.

The arising of the day star, which is the sun, is that which Jesus spoke of in his memorable talk on the Mount of Olives in answer to his disciples’ questions as to the signs of his Advent; "as the astrape, the bright radiance, cometh from the east and shineth even unto the west, so shall also the presence of the Son of Man be" (Matt.24:27*) Malachi spoke of the same; "unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings." (Mal.4:2) We who are Christ’s already discern the first radiance in the eastern sky betokening the rising of that Sun; we see the signs that its light will shortly be flooding the world and we wait with diligence for that revelation, but as yet the world in general sees and knows nothing and is ignorant of what portends. Only later, when the sun is above the horizon and its rays are chasing away the darkness, will men in general realise that, even as He promised, He has come. In the meantime we continue to have this sure word of prophecy, a sure guide to the things that are happening in these last days of this present world, and a clear foreview of the glorious happenings that are to come next.

A little later on, in his third chapter, Peter warns of the doubters who challenge this sublime expectation. The time has been prolonged, over enthusiastic expectations have been unfulfilled, and doubts have begun to creep in. "Where is the promise (evidence) of his coming (presence)," they ask "for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation." (2 Pet.3:4) They ignore the fact that there was a time once before when a few men of faith proclaimed the imminent end of a world that had become corrupt and condemned in the sight of God, and were met by unbelief and heedlessness. That world went on with its eating and drinking, its planting and building, its marrying and giving in marriage, until "the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished." (2 Pet.3:6) The Flood came, and took them all away. So it will be again, said Jesus. As it was in the days of Noah, so will it be in the days of the Son of Man. (Matt.24:37‑38; Luke 17:26) But just as after that cataclysm was over there was instituted a new and better world, so now. The day of the Lord will come, says Peter, in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements of the earth shall disintegrate; all that is of evil and the power and dominion of evil shall pass away. But "we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness." (2 Pet.3:13) And immediately following that inspiring promise comes the key word and climax to all that he has been saying in his first chapter "wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for such things, be diligent." (2 Pet.3:14)

November / December 1984