2 Peter 1:16Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

We delivered what we saw with our own eyes, when we ascended with Him onto the holy mountain.

The Apostle speaks of the glory of the Only-begotten, which was revealed to the Apostles in the Transfiguration. He also speaks of the voice of the Father, which they heard descending upon the Lord from heaven, from the Father.

Since we learned from the events themselves what had been foretold by the prophets, we also regard their prophecy as more sure. For the words were justified by the events.

Therefore you also do well to give heed to prophecy, that is, to the predictions of the prophets, although the prophets in their own time spoke with less than complete clarity.

What glory of the Lord Jesus Christ did he witness? Let another Apostle show us: “When they were fully awake,” he says, “Peter and those with him saw the glory of Christ” (Lk 9:32).

What was this glory? Let another Evangelist come forward and bear witness: “His face shone like the sun, and His garments became white as light” (Mt 17:2).

The Lord showed them that He is God, “clothing Himself with light as with a garment,” according to the Psalmist (Ps 103:2).

Therefore, after saying that he had seen the glory of Christ “on the holy mountain,” a light that illumined, wondrous to say, even hearing, he says: “We have the prophetic word made more sure.”

For there they saw a shining cloud that sounded with words. Thus, after the vision of this glory of Christ, he says this.

What prophetic word made more sure did you receive after the contemplation of the light, O seers of God? What, if not this, that God “clothes Himself with light as with a garment”?

“And you do well,” says the Apostle, “to hold fast to this prophetic word, as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns.”

What day? Surely the day that shone forth on Tabor. “And the morning star rises.” What morning star? Surely the one that illumined Peter, James, and John there.

“Until this morning star rises.” Where? “In our hearts” (2 Pet 1:18-19).

Is it not clear that this light now shines in the hearts of the faithful and perfect? Is it not clear that it surpasses the light of knowledge beyond measure?

It differs not only from the knowledge obtained by Hellenic learning. Such knowledge is unworthy even to be called knowledge, being wholly false or mixed with falsehood, and closer to darkness than to light.

I say that the light of this vision differs not only from that knowledge, but also from the knowledge of the divine Scriptures.

The light of knowledge is comparable to a lamp shining in a dark place. The light of mystical vision is comparable to the morning star shining by day, that is, to the sun.

In the apocryphal Acts of the Apostles there are expressions concerning the second Person of the Trinity: “Merciful Father, Savior Christ” (Acts of Thomas A 97, Lipsius R. A., Bonnet M., Acta apostolorum apocrypha, vol. 2, Leipzig, 1903, p. 210, l. 8), and “I am the Father of all these ages” (Acts of Matthew 3, ibid., p. 220, l. 4).

Melito of Sardis, in the second century, also calls Christ Father in On the Passion of Christ, 9.

Theodoret of Cyrus speaks of the saving appellation of Jesus Christ, saying that He is “Father of the age to come, because as Adam is called father of the present age, so He is called Father of the age to come” (Commentary on Isaiah 9:6).

The naming of Christ as Father is also found in some works attributed to Macarius of Egypt and in ascetical and mystical writings of later centuries. Yet it is not found among the great teachers of the Church.

Its basis in Sacred Scripture is Is 9:6: “For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given; the government shall be upon His shoulders, and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Father of eternity.”

We taught how He sent down the All-Holy Spirit, and how He will come again to earth in glory, to accomplish the final judgment.

We made all this known to you, not following cunningly devised fables, as pagan teachers or other false teachers did. The Apostle Paul points to such things in 1 Cor. 2:4; 1 Tim. 1:4; 1 Tim. 4:7; 2 Tim. 4:4.

Rather, we saw with our own eyes the great works of the Lord Jesus, about which we proclaimed to you.

We heard with our own ears from His mouth the teaching which we gave you. We ourselves lived at the time when the Lord dwelt on earth.

We saw Him preach the Gospel teaching, forgive sins, heal the sick of every kind by a single word or touch, command the winds so that they became still, and raise the dead.

We ourselves were witnesses of His redemptive sufferings and death on the cross. We ourselves saw Him risen from the dead.

After He rose, He spoke with us many times and shared a meal with us. Before our eyes He ascended into heaven.

We ourselves were witnesses of the descent of the Holy Spirit, and were counted worthy of His overshadowing.

The great signs and miracles, the Gospel teaching, the redemptive sufferings and death, the resurrection from the dead, the ascension into heaven, and the sending down of the Holy Spirit all reveal the power and majesty of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The concept of power here embraces the whole fullness and richness of His life and activity. It includes the abundance and treasure of the divine power dwelling in Him.

It includes His wonderworking deeds, His authority over the minds and hearts of men, His resurrection, descent into Hades, ascension, and dominion over the whole world.

Coming means arrival or manifestation, both first and second, past and future: His manifestation in the flesh in humiliation, and in glory and majesty.

The Apostle seems to speak of Christ's power and coming because the false teachers denied precisely the power and coming of the Lord Jesus, the Son of God.

Not following cunningly devised fables: fables, or tales, are stories invented by imagination, or false narratives that have the appearance, or shadow, of truth. Cunningly devised stands in opposition to simple truth.

The Apostle Paul calls such fantasies profane and old wives' fables (1 Tim. 4:7; compare 2 Pet. 1:4).

Probably this characterizes the fantastic inventions of the false teachers, which had begun to develop even in apostolic times, but developed especially in the second century among the so-called Gnostics.

Having been eyewitnesses means they were entirely trustworthy witnesses, in contrast to the ravings of false teachers who invent their fantastic stories.

They were eyewitnesses of His majesty and of the power usually expressed in majesty. All the Apostles were witnesses of it, especially those closest to Christ.

"Having required strict attention from the faithful to his Gospel preaching, and having insisted on this for a long time, though they know it and have heard it more than once, the Apostle now says: I do not dwell on this in vain.

Rather, I do so because I understand its whole importance. Why? Because when we proclaimed to you the power and coming of the Lord, we did not use human wisdom toward you.

We did not charm your hearing with eloquence, as pagans and heretics do. Pagans charm by beauty and poems, and heretics by inventions. They were probably already beginning to appear then.

Nothing of this sort can be suspected in us. We delivered the teaching to you in unadorned speech, as Paul also says to the Corinthians (1 Cor. 2:4, 13).

We delivered what we saw with our own eyes, when we ascended with Him onto the holy mountain" (Theophylact).

This compels me continually to repeat my instructions to you "as long as I am in this bodily tent." Yet I must soon leave it, according to the revelation of the Lord.

But even after my departure, bring my instructions to remembrance. I did not teach you without proof, nor by following cunningly devised fables.

I taught as an eyewitness and witness to the teaching of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who was glorified during the Transfiguration on Tabor.

And if even this is insufficient, then "we have the prophetic word made more sure." Long beforehand, the prophets foretold all that we saw and heard, and all that we taught you.

Learn, then, from the prophetic word, and be guided by it as by a lamp shining in a dark place, "until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts."

That is, until you acquire the more perfect knowledge of Christian truth, and until the Light of the world, the Lord Jesus Christ, kindles your hearts with a more perfect love for Him.

"Know this first of all, that prophecy was never brought forth by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit."

By pointing to this fact, the Apostle proves, on the one hand, the truly divine, consubstantial, and coequal being of the Son of God with the Father.

The Son of God is in no way like those aeons about which the Gnostics taught.

On the other hand, the Apostle points to his special apostolic election, by which he was counted worthy to be a direct witness of this greatest event, together with only two other Apostles.

There, moreover, the voice of God Himself resounded. From this everyone can see that, although Christian teaching is founded on faith, it is at the same time knowledge.

It is knowledge founded on the clearest facts, attested by the most trustworthy persons: eyewitnesses and men of high moral life, who remained faithful to what they preached even unto martyrdom.