EVENING SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 11/06/2025 8:20 PM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-4 “Peter’s Eyewitness Experience”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: 2 Peter 1:16-18
Message of the verses: “16 For we did not follow cleverly devised tales when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were 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.”
I mentioned at the end of my last SD from 2 Peter that we would be looking at another word definition from MacArthur’s commentary as we begin this evening.
“Eyewitnesses (epoptai) originally meant ‘general observances’ or ‘spectators,’ but over the years its meaning evolved. Barclay explains:
In the Greek usage of Peter’s day this was a technical word. We have already spoken about the Mystery Religions. These Mystery Religions were all of the nature of passion plays, in which the story of a god who lived, suffered, died, and rose again, never to die again, was played out. It was only after a long course of instruction and preparation that the worshipper was finally allowed to present at the Passion play, and to be offered the experience of becoming one with the dying and rising God. When he reached the stage of being allowed to attend the actual passion play, he was an initiate, and the technical word to describe him was in fact epoptes; he was a prepared and privileged eye-witness of the experiences of God. (The Letters of James and Peter, rev. ed. [Philadelphia; Westminster, 1976], 367)
With that usage in mind, it is clear that Peter saw himself and his fellow apostles as preeminently privileged spectators who had reached the highest and truest level of spiritual experience in being with Christ. Peter had in mind one event in particular that dramatically previewed Christ’s second coming majesty.”
Now you may know what is coming next as we have looked at many Greek words that were used in the original writing that Peter used in his second letter, and the word majesty is the word that we will be looking at next from MacArthur’s commentary.
“Majesty (megaleiotes),’ which can also be translated ‘splendor,’ ‘grandeur,’ or ‘magnificence,’ is elsewhere in the New Testament used to identify ‘the greatness of God’ (Luke 9:43). Jesus had predicted that some of the apostles would see the manifestation of His divine greatness: Truly I say to you, there are some of those who are standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom’ (Matt. 16:28; cf. Luke 9:27). God the Father was present at that special event, at which Christ received honor (time, ‘exalted status’) and glory (doxa, ‘radiant splendor’) from Him. The first term gives Jesus the highest respect and recognition (John 5:23; 1 Tim. 1:17; Heb. 2:9; Rev. 4:9, 11; 5:12-13), and the second accords divine, unparalleled brightness to Him (Matt. 24:30; Luke 9:32; cf. John 1:14; 17:22; 2 Thess. 1:9).”
Lord willing, I will finish this section in tomorrow evenings SD, and as one can tell this is a very important part of Peter’s second letter as he writes about the time when he, John, and James were on the mountain with the Lord Jesus Christ which was not very far from the Lord’s crucifixion, (death, burial, and resurrection.)
11/6/2025 6:13 PM
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