Our Sure Foundation
March 31, 2025
By Dr. J. Vernon McGee
… Add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love. -2 Peter 1:5-7
Do you ever wonder if God is at work in your life? Peter listed here the path of maturity. Knowing that he wouldn’t be with them very much longer, Peter felt called to stir up these saints to grow in grace, so as not to allow spiritual senility to set in. As long as he had life, Peter was going to remind them of these important things—beginning with the trustworthiness of the Word of God. We have an authority on which we can depend. “How do we know the Bible is really the Word of God?” Peter addresses that: “For we did not follow cunningly devised fables when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of His majesty.”
The Bible is not a fairy tale or a myth—it’s historical and factual. If you study it sincerely, God will make it real to you. If there is a veil over your eyes, it isn’t because you are mentally blind but because you don’t want to give up your sins. When you’re willing to do that, God will make the Bible real to you.
God’s Word is like a light shining from a dark place—it’s a certain word of truth because it’s the spoken Word of God. The prophets didn’t just take dictation from God; rather, they expressed their own feelings and thoughts. Nevertheless, God was able to transmit His complete will and word through the men who wrote Scripture. This is what makes it a miraculous book. The Word of God is not only divine; it is very human.
The Lord Jesus is both God and man. And the Bible is both a God-book and a man-book. It deals with human life, right down where we live and move and have our being, yet it is God speaking to man in a language that is understandable to us.
Many people think, “I wish I could have been with Peter and seen those things.” But we have something even better. We have the whole Word of God. It will speak directly to you if you will open your heart and allow it to speak. The Word of God is better than seeing and hearing.
As the sun gives out its light, throwing it out to the universe, so the Word of God sends out a light, a force, and a power. It is the only tangible supernatural thing we have in this world today. The Word of God is the only physical miracle that we have from God in this hour, drawing men away from the world system and putting them into the arms of God. He teaches us the truth of His Word through the Holy Spirit who makes them real to us.
The Bible has a whole message, with collaborating messages. No portion can be interpreted apart from other verses on the same subject. (This is why you shouldn’t pull a verse of Scripture out of context and build a doctrine on it. If you can’t get the whole body of Scripture to confirm your doctrine, then get a new doctrine.) The human writers of Scripture didn’t just think up what they wanted to say. They were “moved” by the Holy Spirit, which means “moved along like a sailing vessel is moved by the wind.” The Spirit of God inspired these men who were set apart by God to be His instruments in writing Scripture. This is the same thought as what Paul wrote in 2 Timothy 3:16, “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God ….” God took each writer and used him, without changing his style or interfering with his personality, to write His Word so that His message comes across. If God spoke out of heaven today, He would have to repeat Himself, because He already has said all that He has to say to mankind. God gets His Word to us through men of different personalities and different skills. For this reason this is a man-book and a God-book.
The written Word, like the Lord Jesus, the living Word, is both human and divine. The Lord Jesus could weep at a grave, but He could also raise the dead. He could sit down at a well because He was tired and thirsty, but He could also give the water of life to a poor sinner. He could go to sleep in a boat, but He could also still the storm. He was a man, but He was God also. And the Bible is both human and divine.
The Bible is a solid rock under our feet. We can have confidence that it is true and trustworthy. No wonder the Word of God has been attacked more than anything else. If the enemy can get rid of the foundation, he knows the building will come crashing down.
The Bible is a solid foundation on which we can rest our faith.
My Turn
- God’s Word is only valuable to us if it is part of our lives. What things prevent you from being in God’s Word more?
- What does it tell us about our God that He used so many different people of different backgrounds and personalities to write His Word?
- You are probably surrounded by people willing to tell you that you can’t trust the Bible, but Peter says it can be trusted. Why should you believe Peter?
- The pressure to lose faith in God’s Word is real today, but it was just as real for the Jewish Christians of the first century. What pressures can you imagine were on the early church to abandon the faith?
This excerpt is from our, "2 Peter Bible Companion." Get your print copy or free digital download at TTB.org.