Kootenai Church Morning Worship

We are taking up a passage this morning that is probably very familiar to many of you. These verses are quoted by people in a number of contexts to address a number of different issues. These verses describe the reliability of the Scriptures, the nature of divine revelation, and the role of the human authors in the writing of Scripture.
And then, as you noticed when we read verses 16 through the end of the chapter earlier, there is a personal note here from Peter regarding being an eyewitness to the transfiguration of Jesus, an event that was so significant it is recorded by Matthew, Mark, and Luke, all three of the Synoptic Gospels. All of them record that event that Peter was privy to. And he describes that in verses 16–18. These verses also describe the second coming of Jesus Christ in power and glory, something that was denied by the false teachers of Peter's day, and you're going to see that later on in chapter 3. I'll have you turn there later.
But all of that to say that there is a lot in these verses. Verse 12 through the end of the chapter is really one unit of thought. We looked at verses 12–15 last week, and we saw Peter saying there that he would continue as long as he was in this world, as long as he lived, to remind them of certain truths. And then you say, “Well, what truths were those?” They're the truths about the Person of Christ, the work of Christ, the glory of Christ, and most certainly the coming of Christ, which he describes now later on in this passage.
So he says in verse 16 that concerning those truths—that which he had passed on to them and was reminding them of—these things were not based upon cleverly devised myths and fables. Instead, Peter was an eyewitness to the realities that he had communicated to them. And that's where verse 16 and following comes into play. He is describing here the return of Christ and saying, “I'm not saying this—this return of Christ is not a doctrine that the apostles have invented out of thin air. This is not something that's just the product of a cleverly devised myth.” Instead, Peter says, “I was an eyewitness to these things.”
So let's read together verses 16 through the end of the chapter. We're going to be looking together today at verses 16–18—more specifically, verse 16. Verse 16:
16 For we did not make known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, following cleverly devised myths, but being eyewitnesses of His majesty.
17 For when He received honor and glory from God the Father, such an utterance as this was made to Him by the Majestic Glory, “This is My beloved Son with whom I am well-pleased”—
18 and we ourselves heard this utterance made from heaven when we were with Him on the holy mountain.
19 And we have as more sure the prophetic word, to which you do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star arises in your hearts.
20 Know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes by one's own interpretation.
21 For no prophecy was ever made by the will of man, but men being moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God. (2 Pet. 1:16–21 LSB)
Now these verses, verse 16 through the end of the chapter, are a defense of the doctrine of the second coming of Jesus Christ. You see in verse 16 he describes the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. That is not a reference to the first coming of Jesus. That is a reference to the second coming of Jesus. He's describing there the imminent return of our Lord Jesus Christ, and he is saying this doctrine is not something that is the product of cleverly devised fables.
And this was something—this doctrine of the return of Christ—this was something that the false teachers in Peter's day, as we'll see in chapter 3, denied. And they were saying that the teaching of the apostles regarding the coming of Christ was a myth. And Peter here in verse 16 is saying, “No, that doctrine is not a myth.” And in order to refute the claims of the false teachers that he's going to describe later in chapter 2, in order to refute those claims, Peter offers two lines of argument. First, in verses 16–18, he argues that the coming of Christ was previewed by eyewitnesses. We were eyewitnesses of His majesty. Then the second line of argument is that the coming of Christ was predicted by the prophets. “We have as more sure the prophetic word” (v. 19). Peter says, “I was an eyewitness, and we have the prophetic word.” These two things Peter employs in order to refute the false teaching that denied the return of Christ.
So here's how we're going to divide this up. I mentioned earlier in the announcements that I'm going to be gone for the month of September. And I didn't want to divide up this passage in such a way that I was like splitting a point. That's sometimes how the preaching goes. You have three points. This is actually going to be three sermons. You take one point and you split it up. And I didn't want to do anything like that and then have like a month go by and then come back and be in the middle of a sentence when we picked up. So here's what we're going to do today. Verses 16–18 is going to be our text for this week and next week. And then when I get back at the end of September, we'll pick it up in verse 19 by talking about the nature of prophetic revelation.
So today we're going to examine the significance of Peter's preview of Christ's return in the transfiguration. And we're going to be looking more specifically and more intently at that event in one of the three Synoptic Gospels next week. Today, we're going to simply look at verse 16 and see how it is that he is defending the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. And then we'll be able to see next week why the transfiguration of Christ was brought in as an argument to defend that reality next week. Everybody got that? So today, just the first point of those two lines of argument. Today, actually just the first half of that first point of those two lines of argument.
So in order to refute the denials of the false teachers, Peter employs two lines of argumentation. In verses 16–18, I was an eyewitness, and in verses 19–21, there's prophetic revelation that describes this coming. We have the prophetic word made even more sure than my eyewitness testimony, Peter says.
Now in this passage, verses 16 to the end of the chapter, there is a long list of subjects that are addressed here, things that kind of come up, threads, as it were, that we could pull all the way through Scripture if we wanted to, and here are a number of them. First, as I just mentioned, the return of Christ in salvation and judgment. Second, the nature of that return, what it will mean for believers and what it will mean for unbelievers. What was the transfiguration and why is it significant? Why does this episode of the transfiguration refute the false teachers? Who were these false teachers, and what were they claiming about the return of Christ? This passage also addresses the historical reliability of the New Testament records, the truth and reliability of the prophets who predicted the return of Christ, and the nature of prophetic revelation as being from God. We see here described the doctrine of inspiration, which touches on the nature of Scripture, both Old Testament and New Testament.
And then, of course, it addresses the issue of how we should interpret prophetic literature and thus all of Scripture. Peter in verses 16–21 is arguing for a certain interpretive approach to Old Testament prophecy regarding the coming of Christ. OK, put that away in the back of your mind. Peter is arguing for a certain interpretive approach to Old Testament prophecy concerning the return of Christ. This is where the transfiguration of Christ described in Matthew 17 comes into the picture. What Peter was seeing there—I'm going to spoil a little bit of the ending for next week. What Peter was seeing there was not the deity of Christ revealed. What Peter was seeing there was a preview of the coming kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ. And since he describes that and then says, “The prophetic testimony agrees with what I saw,” he is arguing for a certain interpretive approach to Old Testament prophecy. And we're going to see what that approach is. And then, of course, this passage describes the glory of Christ and therefore His deity.
So the nature of Christ, His deity, His humanity, the nature of written Scriptures and apostolic witness, the reality and nature of the Lord's return in our interpretation of Scripture—all of those are threads that we could pull. We're not going to pull all of those. We're going to pull on some of them, but we're not going to follow all of them. We're going to follow the threads that Peter lays out for us here that really form the argument that he's giving us in Chapter 1, that he wraps up in Chapter 1.
So let's jump in. To review the claims of the false teachers, Peter employs two lines of argumentation. The first, he shows that the coming of Christ was previewed by eyewitnesses. That's verses 16–18. So read verse 16 again with me: “For we did not make known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, following cleverly devised myths, but we were eyewitnesses of His majesty.”
When Peter describes the “we” there, he is talking about the apostles generally, but more specifically a subgroup of the apostles that were witnesses of the transfiguration. It's possible that Peter was writing to churches that were founded by himself and/or John and/or the apostle James, that they knew of those apostles because those apostles had founded the churches to which he is writing. He is describing in a certain sense the way in which all of the apostles were eyewitnesses of the majesty of Jesus. So when Peter says, “We did not make known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, following cleverly devised myths, but we were eyewitnesses of [it],” the we there in one sense is all of the apostles. That is, all twelve of the disciples were eyewitnesses to Christ and His glory. John says in John 1:14 that “the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.” There was a sense in which, in the incarnation, the eternal Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, the eternal Son in the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ, revealed the glory of the triune God in a way that was manifest in front of their eyes, and they beheld that glory. All of the disciples were eyewitnesses of that glory and majesty.
But three of the disciples were eyewitnesses of a different event that was quite significant. In fact, the revelation of His glory at that event exceeded the revelation of His glory just in the incarnation, and that was the transfiguration described in Matthew 17:1. And not all twelve apostles were there for that. Peter, James, and John were there for that. Matthew 17:1 says that “six days later Jesus brought with Him Peter and James and John his brother, and led them up on a high mountain.” That's the high mountain that Peter is describing in verse 18 when he says that he heard that “utterance made from heaven when we were with Him on the holy mountain” (2 Pet. 1:18). Peter is unquestionably describing the transfiguration of Christ. There was a glory and a majesty that Peter, along with James and John, saw that the other disciples did not see. They were not privy to that event. Peter uniquely was.
And Peter is saying that in that event, the transfiguration, he saw the power and the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. Look at verse 16: we did not follow cleverly devised fables when we made known to you the power and the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now that should not be taken as two separate things, the power of Christ and the coming of Christ. These two words belong together. They describe one another—a powerful coming. When we made known to you the powerful parousia. Parousia is the Greek word that describes there the appearing or the coming, the manifestation of Christ.
Now Peter is not describing here the first coming of Jesus in His incarnation. He's not referring to being an eyewitness of those things, though he was, but he is claiming to be an eyewitness of the second coming of Jesus. The word parousia in the Greek means a coming, an arrival, or a presence. In fact, of the twenty-four times that it's used in the New Testament, it's translated “presence” twice. But here's the key. Every time that word is used of Jesus in the New Testament, it describes His second coming, every single time. And therefore this is no exception. When Peter says we made known to you the power and coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, he is saying to them, “We have proclaimed to you the soon and imminent return of Jesus Christ in power and glory, and this is not a myth that we have fabricated. This in fact is something that I was an eyewitness to when I heard the Father say this to the Son on that holy mountain.” That's what he's saying. I was an eyewitness to the coming of Christ. Peter got a preview of the second coming, and he was an eyewitness of that.
This is the powerful coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. Matthew 24:27: “Just as the lightning comes from the east and appears even to the west, so will the coming of the Son of Man be.” This powerful coming is described in James 5:8: “You too be patient; strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand.” Every time parousia is used of the Lord Jesus Christ in the New Testament, it is a technical term that describes His second advent, His soon coming in power and glory.
So Peter isn't speaking of the first coming of Christ in humiliation, but the coming of Christ when He comes in all His glory. Matthew 25:31 says, “When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne.” In 2 Thessalonians 1:7–10, Paul describes this and he says that God will
7 give rest to you who are afflicted and to us as well at the revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ from heaven with His mighty angels in flaming fire,
8 executing vengeance on those who do not know God and to those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.
9 These will pay the penalty of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His might,
10 when He comes to be glorified in His saints on that day, and to be marveled at among all who have believed—for our witness to you was believed. (LSB)
That is the coming that the false teachers in 2 Peter denied. That is the one that they mocked.
I want you to turn over to chapter 3. I'm going to read a passage there where Peter brings this very issue of the false teachers and their denial of the coming of Christ up again. Second Peter 3—look at verse 3:
3 Knowing this first of all, that in the last days mockers will come with their mocking, following after their own lusts,
4 and saying, “Where is the promise of His [parousia] coming [same word]? For since the fathers fell asleep, all continues just as it was from the beginning of creation.”
5 For when they maintain this, it escapes their notice that by the word of God the heavens existed long ago and the earth was formed out of water and by water,
6 through which the world at that time was destroyed, being deluged with water.
7 But by His word the present heavens and earth are being reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men. (2 Pet. 3:3–7 LSB)
So Peter here in chapter 3 is addressing these same false teachers that he describes in chapter 2. And he is saying these mockers come along and say, “Where's the promise of His coming? Everything continues just as it always has. It's the same thing. The sun comes up, the sun goes down. Nations rise, nations fall. And here we sit waiting twenty centuries, two millennia, waiting for the coming of Christ. Where is it?” They mock that idea.
Peter's addressing those false teachers in chapter 3. Look what he says in verse 8:
8 But do not let this one fact escape your notice, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day.
9 The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some consider slowness, but is patient toward you, not willing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.
10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be found out.
11 Since all these things are to be destroyed in this way, what sort of people ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness,
12 looking for and hastening the [parousia] of the day of God, because of which the heavens burning will be destroyed, and the elements will melt with intense heat! (2 Pet. 3:8–12 LSB)
I want you to notice there how Peter connects the return of Christ with the motivation for holy living and godly conduct. Seeing that these things are going to take place, that everything is going to be destroyed in a conflagration of judgment and everything will be dissolved, it'll all be burned up, seeing that that is the case, what type of person ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness? There's a set of bookends here in 2 Peter, in chapter 1 and in chapter 3. He raises some issues in chapter 1 and then describes the false teachers in chapter 2, and then he raises those same issues and sort of ties it all together in chapter 3.
In chapter 1, he talks about us being provided for godliness in verse 3. God has provided everything we need for godliness because He has made us partakers of the divine nature (v. 4). And therefore, in verse 5–7, we are to apply all diligence to have self-control, moral excellence, and godliness and add those things to our faith. In verse 11, there is a kingdom which is to come. Peter is looking forward to our entrance into that coming eternal kingdom. And then in verses 16–21, he defends the prophecy regarding that kingdom. So there’s a mention of godliness and holiness and godly conduct and persevering in those things and pursuing holiness because there's a kingdom coming and Christ is returning.
In chapter 2, here's the false teachers, here's what they look like, here's what they sound like, here's what they live like. And then in chapter 3, guess what. These same false teachers deny the very thing that I told you back in chapter 1, but these things are most certainly going to come to pass. And seeing that they will come to pass, you ought to pursue the grace and knowledge and grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ (2 Pet. 3:18), a theme that he mentions in chapter 1. And you ought to be pursuing holy conduct and godly living. In other words, the return of the King, the return of the Lord Jesus Christ, is a motivation to holy conduct.
And you know what destroys a motivation for holy living? Denying that the Lord is going to return. This explains why it is that the false teachers described in chapter 2 are described as licentious, lascivious, sexually immoral, and consumed by their lusts. Because they were denying the second coming of Christ. It is a very short walk between denying the coming of Christ and living in immorality.
Now, while not all false teachers deny the coming of Christ—some of them do—while not all of them do, apparently some of the false teachers that are addressed here in 2 Peter did. And that explains why they were living sexually immoral, debauched lifestyles that he addresses and describes in chapter 2. They were saying, “Where's the promise of His coming? There's no return in judgment. There's no return in glory. Everything is going to continue as it has. And if He is not coming back, then we don't need to worry about living holy and godly lives in expectation of the coming of the Lord.”
They would describe—that is, the false teachers—they would describe the doctrine of the second coming as a myth, which is why Peter says in verse 16, “We did not follow cleverly devised myths.” The Greek word there is mythos, from which we directly get our English word myth. It was used in two ways in ancient Greek literature. It was used first of myths that were told that had a moral tale or a moral story attached to them. They would tell a myth that sort of—in the telling of the myth, you could use the myth to sort of teach a moral lesson to somebody. There was something virtuous in the myth. Nobody really thought the myth was true, but in the telling of the myth and in the exegeting of the myth, you could kind of draw out some sort of a moral lesson or a life lesson that was beneficial and profitable. That's how it was used.
Second, it was used in ancient literature to describe a fable that had absolutely no use whatsoever. Completely empty, completely devoid of anything useful, just a story told for the sake of being the story with nothing redeemable or redeeming about it. That seems to be how Paul uses it when he uses this word in the Pastoral Epistles. First Timothy 1:4: “Nor to pay attention to myths and endless genealogies, which give rise to mere speculation.” Paul's not describing there the type of myth that you would tell that had a moral lesson, but the sort of fable that had no redeeming quality whatsoever.
1 Timothy 4:7: “But refuse godless myths fit only for old women. On the other hand, train yourself for the purpose of godliness.”
2 Timothy 4:4: “[They] will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths.”
Titus 1:14: “Not paying attention to Jewish myths and commandments of men who turn away from the truth.”
Now Peter is not calling the teachings of his opponents myths. He could have. It seems as if Peter is answering the charge of his opponents against him that the return of Christ was a doctrine that was just a cleverly devised myth. As if the false teachers would say, “You know the apostles talk about the return of the Lord. They're just making this stuff up out of whole cloth. They're taking these Old Testament prophecies and kind of twisting them a little bit, maybe taking some of them literally. You can't really take them that way. And they're just devising this whole return of Christ thing. It's just a cleverly devised fable.” And Peter is answering that and saying, “No, no, no, no. I was an eyewitness to this, and the prophets have promised this. He is most certainly coming back.” Peter is answering the charge of the false teachers.
Now, who were the false teachers and what were they teaching? What is interesting about 2 Peter, and I mentioned this—this was like months ago when we started this book—Peter doesn't really name them. He doesn't name them. He doesn't tell us if these were Epicureans or Stoics or Gnostics or some perverse Jewish sect. He doesn't tell us if it was sort of a mythologized Christianity or a Christianized mythology that they were teaching. He doesn't tell us what sort of pigeonhole the false teachers that he's describing in chapter 2 fell into. And in keeping it sort of generic like that, it allows us to see that what Peter is addressing is not just a threat that was unique in his time, but a threat that is unique in every time. We all face these types of false teachers. They were alive in Peter's day and they are alive and active today.
But here's what we know for sure. They mocked the idea of the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. They mocked it. Where's His coming? Everything continues as it is from the beginning. Now, perhaps they taught that the coming of the Lord—now this is just speculation. In fact, let me back up just a second. When we get into chapter 2, we're going to try and nail down a little bit more specifically who the false teachers were. I think there's some good operating theories out there of exactly which sort of philosophy or sect or mythological cult these people were from that Peter is addressing. We're going to try and do that later in chapter 2. But for right now, it is safe to say that we can speculate a little bit about how they could have denied the coming of the Lord, the types of things that they might have taught that would have suggested that what the apostles were teaching about the coming of Christ was a myth.
So it's possible that they taught that the coming of Christ had already happened. You missed it. Yeah, He came. You didn't see it? He came and then He went again. And so that fulfilled it. You weren't there that day? It was down on the corner of First and Lamb right there where the chops are sold and you can buy the shawarma. The guy with the shawarma truck—it was right there in that intersection. You missed it? You weren't there that day? Well, He already came. There's no more coming after this. It's possible that somebody was teaching that the coming of the Lord had already happened.
Or that the first coming was really the only coming, that everything Jesus meant to accomplish in what we think is two comings actually was all accomplished at the first coming. It was all done. There's nothing else after this. That's a possibility.
Or that Jesus already came but it was in the coming of the Spirit in Acts 2 with Pentecost. The Spirit arrived, that was the second coming. See, there's nothing else for Jesus after that. The Spirit of Jesus came, He indwells His people. So therefore that was the second coming. Didn't know that?
Or they might've taught that the resurrection was already past or that this life is all that there will ever be. The implications of that, of course, is that there is no earthly kingdom, there is no bodily resurrection, and there is no new creation to come.
Paul addresses a similar error, and it may have been sort of the same group that Peter's describing, in 2 Timothy 2:16–18 when Paul says, “But avoid godless and empty chatter, for it will lead to further ungodliness, and their word will spread like gangrene. Among them are Hymenaeus and Philetus [those two Paul names], who have gone astray from the truth saying that the resurrection has already taken place, and they upset the faith of some.” There was a perverse eschatology floating around in the first century that said that the resurrection which we are waiting for already came, and it happened. It's already done. And now there is no more prophecy yet to be fulfilled.
And Peter says that those who teach that the resurrection has passed are speaking godless and empty chatter, and it spreads ungodliness like gangrene, and they upset the faith of some. In 1 Corinthians 15:12, Paul, addressing a group in Corinth who denied the doctrine of resurrection, said, “If Christ is preached, that He has been raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?” Then he argues not only for the resurrection of Christ but also for the resurrection of all believers. There were some who were saying there's no coming resurrection, that the resurrection has already taken place. If you're in Jesus, you've been raised with Him. Isn't that what Romans 6 says? You've been baptized into His death. You're also baptized into His resurrection. So what, you foolish people are expecting bodily resurrection? Don't you know that your resurrection was in Christ when He was raised from the dead? That's all you get. You just get this body and that's it. And then it's done. It's possible that they were using that teaching to teach this perverse idea that there was no resurrection to come.
So they denied resurrection. They spiritualized the resurrection, or they said that the resurrection was in the past. Now I've said before, and I don't know where I originally heard this—I would give credit if I knew where the credit was due. Credit is due because I don't come up with smart stuff like this on my own. But I've said before that ideas have consequences and bad ideas have victims. Denying the resurrection of Christ is a bad idea because that has victims. And it is a very short walk between denying the coming of Christ and a life of immorality. If there is no coming of Christ, then there is no coming earthly kingdom. There can't be if there's nothing for Him to rule in. And if there is no coming kingdom, then there is no new creation because all of the arguments that I can give to deny a future literal kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ, all those same arguments can be used to deny the new creation that Revelation 21–22 promises. It's all the same arguments. So if I believe in one, it's all the same arguments that give me the other one. But if there is no coming of Christ, then there's no earthly kingdom, and if there's no earthly kingdom, there's no new creation, and if there's no new creation, then there's no need for us to have physical, resurrected, glorified bodies to live in that new creation in. Therefore, to deny the return of Christ is to deny the bodily resurrection of all His people. And that is a heresy.
So why is it that denying the return of Christ leads to godlessness and immorality and licentiousness? And I said it's a short walk between denying the return of Christ and immorality. Maybe you don't see how short that is or even how those two are connected, but follow me here with this. If the body will not rise, then this body is just temporary and it is disposable. What is really valuable then is the spirit, our soul, our immaterial self. And the spirit and the body are only then temporarily connected to each other. And what is it that is going to live on forever? The spirit or the soul, not the body. The body is disposable. The body is useless. The body is just going to perish. And if it's not going to rise again, then it is not really our true self. It really then doesn't matter what I do with my body, does it? If it's not the true me, it doesn't matter what I do with it. And if it doesn't matter what I do with it, then why not give myself over to every craven lust and desire that I have? Why not give my body what it wants, when it wants, whether that is food or drink or pleasure or whatever it is, if at the end of the day this body will not rise? If it's just going into the dirt to be dissolved and it will never rise again, then it is temporary, it is disposable, it's not the real me, and it doesn't matter what I do with it.
It's like if I told you that your car was going to be on the trash heap in a week and you were going to be required to give up your car and you were going to take it down somewhere and put it on the trash heap. It doesn't matter what you do with it. There's no need to worry about a plan for the future because in a week you're getting rid of your car. Would you take it to the car wash this afternoon? Would you vacuum it out? Would you take care of it? I wouldn't. I'd be running into things just to see what it's like. How fast do I have to be going to get the airbag to pop out? I would park everywhere by braille just to see if I could do it. I wouldn't care about that car. Same thing with your body.
But listen, if this body rises, then it matters what we do with it. It matters what we do in it. It matters how we treat it. These bodies are not disposable. These bodies will live forever in a glorified state. Not another body—this body, renewed, regenerated, resurrected, glorified, powerful. And when you're in that body, you will say, “This is my body. This is not like the body I had, but this is my body.”
If the body will rise, then what we do with it matters. And listen, it matters for eternity, which is why Paul sort of takes up for a moment the argument of those who denied resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15 and he says if there's no resurrection, then eat and drink, and tomorrow you die. In other words, indulge. You get ’em, girl. You give yourself whatever you want. Because if there is no resurrection, then none of it matters. But I'm here to tell you, if there is a resurrection, then all of it matters.
If there is no coming of Christ in physical glory to judge the wicked, then there's no resurrection of the believer to glory. And if there's no resurrection of the believer to glory, then the body is disposable and it doesn't matter. And if the body is disposable and it doesn't matter, then I might as well indulge in every form of immorality that is offered to me. That's the short walk from denying the return of Christ to living in immorality. These false teachers denied the return of Christ. And therefore, chapter 2 says, they were immoral, they were enslaved to their lusts, and everything that they do is for themselves. Because they're just picking up the argument that there's no resurrection, therefore “eat and drink, for tomorrow we die” (1 Cor. 15:32). It doesn't matter what we do with the body, only the soul lives on.
But as Christians, we believe that it does matter what we do with the body. If the body will rise again in power and glory, and if this body will live forever, then it matters what we do with it. First Corinthians 6—I'm going to read you this passage. I want you to listen to how Paul talks about the use of the body for sexual immorality and the resurrection of your body. First Corinthians 6:13–14: “Food is for the stomach and the stomach is for food, but God will do away with both of them. Yet the body is not for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord is for the body. Now God has not only raised the Lord, but will also raise us up through His power.” Hear what he's saying? Your body is not for sexual immorality. Why? There is a resurrection coming. Just as God has raised Christ from the dead, so He will raise your body from the dead.
15 Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take away the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? May it never be!
16 Or do you not know that the one who joins himself to a prostitute is one body with her? For He says, “The two shall become one flesh.”
17 But the one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with Him.
18 Flee sexual immorality. Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral man sins against his own body.
19 Or do you not know that your body is a sanctuary of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?
20 For you were bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body. (1 Cor. 6:15–20 LSB)
The body is not for sexual immorality, Paul says, because the Lord is going to raise it up. And because He's going to raise it up, what you do with your body matters. If He's not going to raise it up, it doesn't matter. But He is going to raise it up. And Peter says, “I was an eyewitness to the coming of Christ, and the prophetic testimony is that you and I will rise again.”
Philippians 3:20–21 says, “Our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by His working through which He is able to even subject all things to Himself.” This is a purifying hope. This matters.
Why would you with all diligence add moral excellence to your faith, and to your moral excellence, knowledge, and to your knowledge, self-control, and to your self-control, perseverance, and your perseverance, godliness, and your godliness, brotherly kindness, and your brotherly kindness, love. Why would you do all of that? Why would you apply all diligence to make your calling and your election sure and to ensure that you are going to enter into that eternal kingdom if in fact there is no eternal kingdom because the Lord is not going to return?
In fact, the return of Christ is behind everything that is in chapter 1. He's really getting to the core of it because the Lord is going to return and because He is going to raise you from the dead and because He's going to bring you into that kingdom, apply all diligence to make sure that your calling and election is sure. It's the return of Christ that is behind all of that. Not from cleverly devised myths, strategically engineered fables, not a bunch of apostles running around coming up with their own interpretation of the Old Testament, but men who were eyewitnesses of the coming of Christ and then passed on to us the hope that the Old Testament still holds out, the prophetic word, which is that Christ will return and there will be a resurrection of all men. This is a purifying hope.
I'm going to close with two verses of Scripture. 1 John 3:2–3: “Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not been manifested as yet what we will be. We know that when He is manifested, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is. And everyone who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.” So I ask you, do you have that hope and are you purifying yourself just as He is pure? Keep before your eyes, before your hearts, before your minds the return of Christ and your resurrection from the dead. Because that is happening, everything you do matters for eternity.