2 Peter 1:16

For we did not follow cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty.

We did not follow ... The plural "we" here is not a mere editorial device, but is inclusive of all the holy apostles of Christ, an inclusion Peter was always careful to make (See 2 Peter 3:2).

Cunningly devised fables ... "Cleverly devised myths were a feature of the theological systems of the Gnostic speculators,"[44] already operating at the time Peter wrote. However, it is just as likely that Peter had no reference at all to gnosticism, but rather, as Macknight thought, to "the cunningly devised fables that were exhibited in the heathen mysteries."[45]

Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ ... "Elsewhere in the New Testament and in this epistle, this expression is used of the Second Coming of Christ";[46] and there is no reason whatever for understanding it otherwise here.

We were eyewitnesses of his majesty ... The "we" here refers to Peter, James and John, the three apostles with Jesus on the mount of transfiguration. The noun for "eyewitnesses" used here is not found elsewhere in the New Testament, but the verb occurs in 1Pet. 2:12,1 Peter 3:2. "Here again we have an undesigned coincidence which points to the identity of authorship for the two epistles of Peter."[47]

Peter's mention of the transfiguration in this context shows that he regarded it as "an event foreshadowing the power and majesty of the second advent and which could be regarded as a pledge of the glory to be revealed at the second coming."[48]

[44] David H. Wheaton, op. cit., p. 1254.

[45] James Macknight, op. cit., p. 533.

[46] R. H. Strachan, op. cit., p. 130.

[47] B. C. Caffin, op. cit., p. 8.

[48] Raymond C. Kelcy, op. cit., p. 130.