The Vision of Christ's Majesty
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. THE PERSON TO WHOM THIS HONOR IS GIVEN. "He received."

II. FROM WHOM HE RECEIVED IT. The Father gives, the Son receives. The Father speaks from heaven, the Son hears it.

III. WHAT HE RECEIVED.

1. Christ would receive honour of His Father.

2. All honour and glory is Christ's, as being delivered to Him by the Father (Luke 10:22).

3. All true and blessed honour comes from God, and is to be sought there.

IV. THE TIME WHEN THE APOSTLES BEHELD, AND THEIR MASTER RECEIVED, THIS GLORY AND MAJESTY.

1. "When there came." Why did the apostles single out the transfiguration, more than any other event, to exemplify Christ's majesty, and the honour conferred on Him by the Father?

(1) Because Moses and Elias appeared to Him there: in all the rest of His miracles He had no company but men on earth, now He had a testimony from two glorious saints in Paradise.

(2) Because He was adorned with celestial glory. Nothing of earth was seen, but a Divine and heavenly majesty appeared.

2. "Such a voice." This is the voice that shall one day be heard from one end of the world to the other.

3. "From the excellent glory." There be glories in the world, but they are not excellent (Genesis 49:3, 4). This glory is admirable.

(1) For dignity. It is a glory: and this hath been the scope of most men's endeavours and reaches.

(2) For clarity. It is not a hidden, but a revealed glory (Colossians 3:4). Clear, both for condition, it shall be excellent; for cognition and apprehension, it shall be seen in the full excellency of it. It is an everlasting solstice; the length is interminable, the brightness unchangeable, the fulness unvariable.

(3) For verity. It shall be indeed, not in show only, but upon us.

(4) For the eternity. If it had an end, it were not excellent,

V. THE MATTER AND SUBSTANCE OF THE TESTIMONY.

1. "This"; the word shows Him to be that Messias, long before prophesied, and now manifested. This, singularly; not another, but this is He.

2. "My Son," consubstantially, because begotten of Mine own substance. Originally Mine, by union of nature; though in Him others be made Mine also, by adoption of grace.

3.
"Beloved," eternally; not in time accepted, but before all beginning begotten.

4. "In whom I am well pleased," and never was offended: all other men were the children of wrath; I could not be pleased with them; but in this Son I rest.

(Thos. Adams.)



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.

WEB: For we did not follow cunningly devised fables, when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty.




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