Thursday, August 25, 2022

Jeffrey M. Bradshaw on "The More Sure Word of Prophecy" (2 Peter 1:19)

From: Jeffrey M. Bradshaw, Freemasonry and the Origins of Latter-day Saint Temple Ordinances (Orem, Utah: Interpreter Foundation; Salt Lake City: Eborn Books, 2022), 240-42, 502-4:

 

The More Sure Word of Prophecy

 

On 27 August 1843, the Prophet said that Jesus Christ received “the fulness of priesthood or the law of God” on the Mount of Transfiguration. [1380] In a related sermon a few months earlier, he had unfolded the meaning of the reference in 2 Peter 1:19 to an additional blessing the apostles received at the time, namely the “more sure word of prophecy.” [1381] Continuing his effort to “stir up” the Saints “in remembrance of these things” (vv. 13, 12), Peter had reminded his readers of his firsthand experience at the Mount of Transfiguration. The overall scriptural account is cryptic, and translators have struggled particularly with the reference to the “more sure word of prophecy” in verse 19—a “crux interpretum” for the entire book according to Jerome H. Neyrey. [1382]

 

On the Mount of Transfiguration, Peter and his companions had become “eyewitnesses of [the] majesty” [1383] of the glorified Jesus Christ and had heard the voice of God the Father declare: “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” [1384] Joseph Smith asked his hearers, “What could be more sure” than that?

 

The Prophet answered by saying that the only more sure witness of salvation that can be had than hearing the Father testify of the Son is hearing His personal promise that we ourselves will be exalted with His Son: [1385]

 

IT is one thing to receive knowledge by the voice of God (“This is my beloved Son,” etc.) and another to know that you yourself will be saved. To have a positive promise of your own salvation is making your calling and election sure—that is, the voice of Jesus saying, “My beloved, thou shalt have eternal life.” Brethren, never cease struggling until you get this evidence. And take heed both before and after obtaining the more sure word of prophecy.

 

After summarizing the three linked keys that are hidden in the first chapter of 2 Peter Joseph Smith earnestly enjoined the Saints to do everything necessary to make their calling and election sure so they would be eligible to receive the divine knowledge that constitutes the ultimate power of salvation. This knowledge did not come merely when Peter heard the voice of God speak. Rather, it came afterward, through the “more sure” promise made with the father’s personal oath [1387] to Peter that he would obtain the fulness of the joys of the celestial kingdom forever and ever. [1388]

 

Though scholars often fail to grasp the full nature and import of Peter’s experience on the Mount of Transfiguration, some at least have a sense of the implication of 2 Peter 1:19 for every reader of the epistle. For example, according to the editors of the ESV Bible “believers are admonished to ‘pay attention’ to the certainty of the ‘prophetic word’. In the contrast between ‘we have’ and ‘you will do well,’ Peter is apparently emphasizing that the interpretation of the apostles (‘we’) is to be regarded as authoritative for the church (‘you’)” [1389]—while striving themselves, meantime, to obtain the same “prophetic word” that Peter possessed (that is, “take heed [unto our more sure word], as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts).” [1390] In other words, not only Jesus and Peter, btu each one who endures to the end in keeping “all the commandments” and obeying “all the ordinances of the house of the Lord,” [1391] can look forward with eager anticipation to the day when they will hear the Father’s declaration that they have become, at last, sons and daughters in sufficient likeness of His beloved Son, of whom He can also say He is well pleased.

 

1380 J. Smith, Jr. et al., Words, 27 August 1843, p. 246, spelling, punctuation, and grammar

modernized.

 

1381 Ibid., 21 May 1843, pp. 204–209.

 

1382 J. H. Neyrey, 2 Peter, Jude, pp. 178–179.

 

1383 2 Peter 1:16.

 

1384 2 Peter 1:17.

 

1385 J. Smith, Jr. et al., Words, 21 May 1843, Martha Jane Knowlton Coray Notebook, p. 208, spelling, punctuation, and grammar modernized.

 

1386 Public Domain.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7b/Transfiguration_bloch.jpg (accessed 21 December 2015).

 

1387 The personal oath of the Father described here is the same oath referred to Doctrine and Covenants 84:39, when it mentions “the oath and covenant which belongeth to the priesthood” (see M. G. Romney, Oath). Elder Bruce R. McConkie explains (B. R. McConkie, New Witness, p. 313):

 

Man and Deity enter into the covenant of the priesthood, but only the Lord, meaning the Father, swears the oath.

 

This same oath, by which one enters the Church of the Firstborn (Doctrine and Covenants 88:3-5; 93:21-22; J. Smith, Jr., Teachings, 27 June 1839, p. 151) and receives the knowledge of his “election sure”—and to which allusion is made throughout scripture—is perhaps most clearly expressed in Psalm 110:4:

 

The Lord hath sworn, and will not repent, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek.

 

Commenting on the oath that is found in Psalm 110:4, President Joseph Fielding Smith said (J. F. Smith, Jr., Oath, p. 92):

 

To swear with an oath is the most solemn and binding form of speech known to the human tongue; and it was this type of language that the Father chose to have used in the great Messianic prophecy about Christ and the priesthood. Of him it says: “The Lord hath sworn, and will not repent, Thou are a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek.” (Psalm 110:4.)

 

In explaining this Messianic prophecy, Paul says that Jesus had “an unchangeable priesthood,” and that through it came “the power of an endless life” (see Hebrews 7:24, 16). Joseph Smith said that “all those who are ordained unto this priesthood are made like unto the Son of God, abiding a priest continually,” that is, if they are faithful and true.

 

And so Christ is the great prototype where priesthood is concerned, as he is with reference to baptism and all other things. And so, even as the Father swears with an oath that his Son shall inherit all things through the priesthood, so he swears with an oath that all of us who magnify our callings in that same priesthood shall receive all that the Father hath.

 

See also 2 Samuel 7:14: “I will be his father, and he shall be my son”; Psalm 2:7: “the Lord hath said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee”; Psalm 89:3-4: “I have sworn… Thy seed will I establish for ever, and build up thy throne to all generations”; Psalm 89:19-20: “I have exalted one… with my holy oil have I anointed him”; Psalm 89:26-29: “He shall cry out to me, Thou art my father, my God… I will make him my firstborn, higher than the kings of the earth. My mercy will I keep for him for evermore, and my covenant shall stand fast with him. His seed also will I make to endure for ever, and his throne as the days of heaven”; Psalm 89:34-37: “My covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips. Once have I sworn by my holiness that I will not lie unto David. His seed shall endure for ever, and his throne as the sun before me. It shall be established for ever as the moon, and as a faithful witness in heaven”; Psalm 132:11-12: “The Lord hath sworn in truth… Of the fruit of thy body will I set upon thy throne. If thy children will keep my covenant and my testimony that I shall teach them, their children shall also sit upon thy throne for evermore”; Psalm 110:4: “The Lord hath sworn, and will not repent, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek” (See Hebrews 6:17-20; 7:20-28); Matthew 25:21: “Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord”; Revelation 4:1: “Come up, hither”; 2 Nephi 31:20: “thus saith the Father: Ye shall have eternal life”; Enos 1:27: “he will say unto me: Come unto me, ye blessed, there is a place prepared for you in the mansions of my Father”; Mosiah 26:20: “I covenant with thee that thou shalt have eternal life”; Doctrine and Covenants 88:3-4: “This Comforter is the promise which I give unto you of eternal life, even the glory of the celestial kingdom”; Doctrine and Covenants 132:49: “I seal upon you your exaltation, and prepare a throne for you in the kingdom of my Father, with Abraham, your father”; Moses 6:68 (See E. T. Benson, What I Hope, p. 8): “thou art one in me, a son of God; and thus may all become my sons”; Hymns (1985), Hymns (1985), #21: “Yea, keep His law with all thy might Till thine election’s sure, Till thou shalt hear the holy voice Assure eternal reign, While joy and cheer attend thy choice, As one who shall obtain”; ibid., #81: “Thus saith our God: ‘Ye have eternal life!’“; ibid., #134: “His voice is heard: ‘Ye shall obtain.’”

 

1388 See J. Smith, Jr., Teachings, 27 June 1839, p. 150. More will be said about this topic below, in the section on the oath and covenant of the priesthood. For extensive discussions of this and related topics, see B. R. McConkie, NT Commentary, 3:325-350; B. R. McConkie, Promised Messiah, pp. 570-595.

 

1389 L. T. Dennis et al., ESV, p. 2419n1:19.

 

1390 Emphasis added. Likewise, summarizing the thrust of Peter’s arguments, Simon S. Lee writes (S. S. Lee, Jesus' Transfiguration, p. 143):

 

I believe that [the] theological thinking of 2 Peter is almost equivalent to both the Markan discipleship of following Jesus in his suffering, death, and glorification (Mark 8:27–9:13) and Paul’s understanding of the believers’ continuous transformation into the image of Christ (2 Corinthians 3:18–4:6).

 

1391 J. Smith, Jr., Teachings, 11 June 1843, p. 308.

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