2 Peter 1:19, ‘And we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed, to which you do well to pay attention, as to a lamp shining in dark place, until day should dawn and the morning star should rise in your hearts.’
Peter speaks of 3 lights: a lamp, the day, and the morning star.
First, the ‘lamp’ refers to the ‘prophetic word,’ which seems to refer to all of Scripture **as it is understood as a word about Christ.** So, the light of the lamp shining in our darkness are the words of Scripture as they speak of Christ, who is our blessed Hope.
Secondly, he speaks of the Day. This continues the theme established with the idea of using a lamp in the darkness….And see the beauty here: the light of the Day is the same light as shines in the lamp, albeit stronger, fuller, brighter, and radiating from the very source of all light. So too, the implication goes, the Light of the coming Day, the Day of the Lord, will be nothing other than the Light that we see now shining from Scripture, but it will be that same light blazing in perfect clarity, cosmic radiance, and world-saturating ubiquity….The beauty of Jesus Christ that shines from Scripture as the heartening rays of a lamp in the darkness of our night is the very beauty that will rise over the horizon of history to engulf the cosmos in its solar brilliance…
And then, third, with the Dawn comes the rising of the morning star in the hearts of the disciples themselves. This seems to indicate that the Light of Christ that now shines in Scripture and which will soon rise to fill all the cosmos, is the same light that will also fill the individual, experienced existence of the saints; the Bride will be radiant with the glory of Her Lord. That light of the hope of the glory of God, of the knowledge of God in the face of Jesus Christ, that light which, finally defined, is Love…that light will not stay at arm’s length, it will not merely be a wonder before our eyes, it will—as with Christ Himself in the Supper—it will enter into us, filling the cup of our inmost being to overflowing….In this way, all things—external and internal—will be filled with the light of the glory of God who is the slain and risen Jesus Christ.
