Introduction

In this first of three parts of the epistle, Peter is defending the truth of Christ against man-made myths. The overriding concern of the epistle is false teaching and its bad effects in the church. In the immediate context, he has been warning the same churches of Asia Minor he had written to before. He says he is reminding them (2 Pet 1:12), that he has already “made known” to them (2 Pet 1:16) “the power and coming” of Christ. That he has corresponded with these churches before is definitively stated by his remark that this is the “second epistle” he had written to them (2 Pet 3:1). He has been refuting “cleverly devised myths,” lauding divine power (over against human achievement), and alluding to the transfiguration of Christ, which Peter himself saw.

Verse 19: “Until the Morning Star”

Peter explains that not only have we heard the voice of God in the transfiguration but “we have a more certain prophetic word, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place until the day dawns and the morning star rises in our hearts” (1:19).

There are a few things to observe here. First, with the expression, “the more sure prophetic word,” Peter refers to the certainty of the written Scriptures. We may be sure that Scripture is in view since, in verse 20 he refers explicitly to the Scriptures. To which Scripture, however, does “the more sure prophetic word” refer? In 1551 Calvin wrote, “The truth of the gospel is founded on the oracles of the prophets.”¹ As Calvin noted, when Peter says, “we have,” he refers to himself and to others. To be sure, as Peter wrote, the canon of Scripture included the Hebrew and Aramaic Scriptures (i.e., the Old Testament), but also by now the growing body of New Testament literature which,² by AD 65 most probably, according to tradition, included also the Gospels of Matthew and Mark.³ Luke may have been written by now and John would be complete c. AD 70. The Epistle of James was in circulation, as was Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians, Paul’s Corinthian correspondence, Romans, and most probably Paul’s Pastoral Epistles. In short, a good bit of the New Testament existed. Scholars debate the extent to which they had been copied and transmitted, but certainly the recipients had copies, and likely, since Peter assumes some knowledge of the Pauline epistles (2 Pet 3:15–16), there were at least a few other copies of the epistles.

Luther’s 1523 paraphrase of this verse is apropos:

Here St. Peter goes to the core of the matter and wants to say: The whole purpose of my preaching is to make your conscience sure and to give your heart a firm footing from which it should not permit itself to be torn, in order that both you and I may be certain that we have God’s Word. For the Gospel is a serious business. It must be grasped and retained in all purity, without any addition or false doctrine.⁴

Whether we are thinking of the old or new covenant Scriptures, that God’s Word had been recorded as Scripture makes it more sure. It is God’s covenant Word, the record of his dealings with his one people through multiple administrations of the one covenant of grace. We know what God has done for us under the types and shadows—for example, his promise to Adam after the fall (Gen 3:15), his covenant of salvation with Noah (Gen 6:18), his covenant with all creation to preserve it until the judgment (Gen 9:8–17), his covenants with Abraham (Gen 12:2; 15:5–19; 17:1–14), with Israel (e.g., Exod 6:4), and with David (2 Sam 7:7–16)—and finally the new covenant (Matt 26:28; 1 Cor 11:25; 2 Cor 3; Heb 7–10).

God’s Word written is the shining lamp in a dark place. Under the types and shadows, Christ’s church was often in a dark place. Under the new covenant the church was surrounded by darkness. They were yet a tiny band. The national covenant that God had made with Israel expired with the death of Christ. National Israel had an earthly capitol and aspired to recover it against the Roman occupation, but the citizenship of the Christians was in heaven (Phil 3:20). Their capitol city “has foundations” because its “builder and maker is God”; it is “a better country” than earthly Canaan because it is “a heavenly one” prepared for us by God himself (Heb 11:10–16).

The pagans around us not only live in darkness but they also have no supernatural or saving light. They have natural light and natural knowledge, which does them (and us) some practical good in this world; but it is, as Calvin wrote, like a flash of lightning. It provides momentary illumination and then it is gone.⁵

As he has been throughout the two epistles, Peter is speaking in eschatological categories. Indeed, eschatology is the central, organizing theme of these two epistles. He wanted the churches of Asia Minor (Turkey) to know where they were in the big scheme of things and who they were. The Holy Spirit wants the same for us. As we will see in chapter 3, Peter chose Noah as his paradigm. He too was surrounded with darkness. The pagans around him mocked him. He was making no plans to transform “the world that then was” (2 Pet 3:6), nor was he part of any cabal to overthrow the existing social order to establish a theocracy. At God’s command, he built an ark and preached the law and the gospel. When the judgment began, he and his covenant household, that little church, entered the ark and were saved by the sovereign grace of God. So it is with us. Christ is the ark. All we who are in him—united to him, by grace alone, through faith alone—are in the ark. He who carried Noah and the church through flood, who himself led Israel through the Red Sea (on dry ground; Exod 14:16; Jude 5), has taken us through the judgment-flood poured out on the cross.

We are awaiting the dawn and the rising of the “morning star” (φωσφόρος) in our hearts. The word translated morning star, were we to add up the letters (not usually a good idea), signals “light bearer.”⁶ It is a difficult allusion. It is usually translated “morning star.” In pagan astronomy it referred to Venus,⁷ which, as N. Green observes, “when in its orbital swing to the west of the sun, rises before dawn as the herald of a new day. Thus it is a fitting description of the person of Christ Jesus.”⁸

In the LXX, Numbers 24:17 refers to a star rising (ἀνατελεῖ ἄστρον). Peter Davids explains, “The prophetic word is the guidance that one has until ‘the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hears.’ Part of this imagery most likely comes from Num 24:17 (‘I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not near. A star will come out of Jacob; a scepter will rise out of Israel’), a passage already interpreted messianically in various contemporary Judaisms.”⁹ There is an analogous expression in Revelation 2:28: “And I will give [Christ] the morning star” (τὸν ἀστέρα τὸν πρωϊνόν).

The dawning of the day is best understood not as a subjective reference (something that happens within us) but a reference to an objective event (something that happens outside of us), namely, the return of Christ, when the darkness of this world will be cast away.¹⁰ But it is an objective reference with a subjective consequence. It is a metaphor for the “rising glory of the Lord” when Christ returns.¹¹ The day objectively will dawn when Christ returns, and then the morning star will rise in our hearts. What does it mean for the morning star to arise in our hearts? John Owen explained that it means “to go forth unto and receive into itself the truth as represented to it: by both of them sending forth light and truth, Ps. 43:3; blowing off the clouds, and raising up the day-star that rises in our hearts, 2 Pet. 2:19.”¹² The gloom of living in darkness will be cleared both objectively and subjectively, personally. Green says perceptively,

It is difficult not to understand the rising of the star as a psychological event, especially in our age when Western Christianity has been redefined in inward or psychological terms. But this and the previous passage deal with Christ’s future advent (cf. 3:4). To speak about some inner rising of the “morning star” in someone’s heart is certainly out of place. But the expression may be used in reference to an external source of light that shines in, as Paul speaks of the light of the gospel shining “in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor 4:6; NRSV).¹³

Christ’s return will clear up everything. As we will see, it will show with the most glorious empirical evidence that 1) Christ was raised, and 2) he has returned (as he said), putting the lie to all the doubters and especially those who caused doubt about a cardinal doctrine of the faith from within the church. The theological liberals of all ages, whether of Peter’s or ours, will have much to answer for on that day.

Notes

1. John Calvin, Commentaries on the Catholic Epistles, trans. John Owen (Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2010), 384.
2. The term “New Testament,” or better “new covenant,” was coined by Irenaeus c. AD 80. “If, therefore, even in the New Testament, the apostles are found granting certain precepts in consideration of human infirmity, because of the incontinence of some, lest such persons, having grown obdurate, and despairing altogether of their salvation, should become apostates from God,—it ought not to be wondered at, if also in the Old Testament the same God permitted similar indulgences for the benefit of His people, drawing them on by means of the ordinances already mentioned, so that they might obtain the gift of salvation through them, while they obeyed the Decalogue, and being restrained by Him, should not revert to idolatry, nor apostatize from God, but learn to love Him with the whole heart.”
   Irenaeus of Lyons, Irenæus against Heresies, in The Apostolic Fathers with Justin Martyr and Irenaeus, ed. Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe, vol. 1, The Ante-Nicene Fathers (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Company, 1885), 4.15.2, p. 480. Migne’s Patrologia Latina (Paris, 1857), 7.1013 has only the Latin translation. Thus the text says “Novum Testamentum,” but in the Greek portions of his works, he uses καινη διθηκη, which is properly translated as new covenant.
3. Modern critical scholarship, which assumes a common source document (the so-called Q or Quelle), typically dates the gospels around AD 70, but there are good reasons to think that Matthew really was first and that Mark, who followed Peter in Rome, wrote his gospel by the mid-40s. For more on the dates, see John Wenham, Redating Matthew, Mark & Luke: A Fresh Assault on the Synoptic Problem (Downers Grove, IL.: InterVarsity Press, 1992).
4. Martin Luther, The Catholic Epistles, ed. Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, Hilton C. Oswald, and Helmut T. Lehmann, Luther’s Works, vol. 30 (Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1999), 164.
5. John Calvin, institutes of the Christian Religion, trans. F. L. Battles, Library of Christian Classics (New York: Westminster Press, 1960), 2.2.18.
6. The second part of this word occurs in the name Christopher.
7. Bauer, Danker, Arndt, Gingrich, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 3rd edition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), s.v., φωσφόρος. See Euripides, Ion, line 1157, in Euripides, The Complete Greek Drama, ed. Whitney J. Oates and Eugene O’Neill, Jr., trans. Robert Potter, vol. 1 (New York. Random House. 1938).
8. N. Green, “Day Star,” in The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, rev. ed., ed. Geoffrey W. Bromiley (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1979–1988), 879.
9. Peter H. Davids, The Letters of 2 Peter and Jude, The Pillar New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 2006), 209.
10. “The ‘day’ that will dawn is most likely the ‘day of the Lord’ (3:10).” Gene L. Green, Jude and 2 Peter, Baker Exegetical Commentary (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008), 228.
11. Green, Jude and 2 Peter, 229.
12. John Owen, The Works of John Owen, ed. William H. Goold, vol. 11 (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, n.d.), 345.
13. Green, Jude and 2 Peter, 229.

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Post authored by:

• R. Scott Clark

  

  R.Scott Clark is the President of the Heidelberg Reformation Association, the author and editor of, and contributor to several books and the author of many articles. He has taught church history and historical theology since 1997 at Westminster Seminary California. He has also taught at Wheaton College, Reformed Theological Seminary, and Concordia University. He has hosted the Heidelblog since 2007.

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