2 Peter 1:16-20 For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ… I. THERE WAS NOTHING ABOUT THE APOSTLES OF WILD ENTHUSIASM. Before they staked everything, present life and life eternal, on the truth of Christianity, they had amplest proof that Jesus of Nazareth was the very Son of the Most High, the predicted Messiah. 1. The miracles wrought by Jesus were the capital proofs of His Messiahship. 2. The miracles of which Jesus Christ was the subject were among the signs of His glorious majesty by which the twelve recognised Him for the Redeemer. Of some of these prodigies, indeed, they were not spectators; not of the meteor star, which, on reaching His birthplace, hung over it. Nor yet, did they witness the sublime scene of His baptism. 3. The transfiguration, I observe, was that view of the Lord's majesty to which holy Peter reverts with singular fondness. II. LET US PASS TO A FEW MARKS OF CHRIST'S POWER AND MAJESTY EXHIBITED IN HIS PERSONAL CHARACTER. 1. The imperturbable temper of the Lord Jesus was among the shining proofs of His moral greatness and Divine nature. 2. His patient endurance of injuries has a further peculiarity about it, which denotes a more than human elevation of mind. For be it remembered that we are often debarred from revenging ourselves by want of power, or by fear of retribution. But Jesus was clothed with almightiness. 3. The condescension of this Man, so mighty in word and deed, to the mean and wretched and vicious whenever they craved His assistance, was another indication of a mind cast in a singular and heavenly mould. Nothing of this kind was found among the Pharisees and popular teachers of the day. 4. The wisdom of Jesus, so immensely beyond what His country, His years, His education gave reason to look for, must also have satisfied candid observers that He was from above. Pharisees, Sadducees, and Herodians tried their skill from morning to night, and were unscrupulous in the artifices they employed to entrap Him; but without effect. But there was a higher kind of wisdom in which Jesus stood alone. Who can peruse His discourses on moral and religious subjects; the Sermon on the Mount, the parables of the Ten Virgins, of the Prodigal Son, and not confess that no mere human mind of any age, least of all that of a Jew in an age so ignorant, corrupt, and superstitious, could possibly give birth to such pure and holy lessons? 5. The authority of our Lord's diction and manner was another ray of His native grandeur, which penetrated the souls of His adherents and ranks high among the proofs of His divinity. He swept away the treasured notions that had come down from father to son, by the right which belonged to Him as the infallible interpreter of heaven. He debated nothing. He rarely deigned to offer reasons or proofs. He never suggested any doctrine doubtingly. You recognise the style of One quite aware that He is as much above other teachers as the heaven is higher than the earth; and that to put Himself upon a level with them were to belie His own character and mission. 6. Once more His devotedness to God, so pure, so noble, so fervent, so invariable, was it not of a kind to distinguish Him from ordinary saints, as the sun from twinkling stars? His zeal for God's glory in a manner consumed Him. Whatever are the arrangements of Providence He rejoices in them precisely because they are the movements of God's will. (J. N. Pearson, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty. |
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