“And so we have the prophetic word confirmed, which you do well to heed as a light that shines in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.”

And so

Peter now continues with an implication of his Mount of Transfiguration experience, which was a preview of the Second Coming of Christ. He now draws on even more convincing documentation of truth than the transfiguration.

we [the apostles] have the prophetic word [Scripture] confirmed [more certain]

The “prophetic word” pertains to inspired utterances – prophetic (of the prophets). In other words, this refers to the entire Old Testament Scripture. We can render this part of the verse as “we have more certain the prophetic word.” As reliable as the three apostle’s experience on the Mount of Transfiguration, the Word of God is more certain. It transcends human confirmation. 

Ro 16:26-27, “But now has been made manifest, and by the prophetic Scriptures has been made known to all nations, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, for obedience to the faith— ²⁷ to God, alone wise, be glory through Jesus Christ forever. Amen.”

The word “confirmed” (comparative adjective) is compared to “prophetic word,” carrying the idea the prophetic word is more certain than the Mount of Transfiguration experience. The Bible that the readers of Second Peter had in their hands was more certain than the transfiguration experience. “Confirmed” means firm, permanent. It came to mean reliable, dependable, and certain. These are people with firm faith because what they believed was altogether reliable. We can rely on and depend upon the Scriptures because they are trustworthy. 

The Word of God is more certain than an apostolic witness of the account of Mount of Transfiguration. Our faith primarily rests in what God says, not what we experience.

PRINCIPLE:

We can trust God’s Word more than we can trust our senses.

APPLICATION:  

We can trust the empirical evidence of the trio of Peter, James, and John seeing the transfiguration, but we can trust the message of the prophets, the Word of God, even more. The issue here is an issue of certainty. Scriptures are known to be true by the apostles; they are certain (He 2:2). There has been a process of verification by the apostles, and they confirmed the Bible to be authentic by a well-established verification process.