(2 Peter 3:1-13 -- Part 2)
by Sam Frost
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I am always open to criticism since I am fallible. Dale Lloyd, a subscriber to the Post, brought to my attention a small but important detail in the quotation I used from Gordon Clark's commentary on 2 Peter. Clark wrote that the epistle is written to Jews, which is not the entire truth. No doubt Jews were in the congregation Peter was writing to, but there is a distinction between Jews (House of Judah) and the House of Israel. The House of Israel (ten tribes) were scattered after the sack by the Assyrian nation (722 BC). The nation was divided after that and is addressed as two separate houses in Ezekiel and Hosea, for example.
These “diasporic Hebrews” were "divorced" by God (Jeremiah 3:8). Yet, they were also promised to be once again restored. Ezekiel 37:15-28 addresses the two houses with the promise that David would once again be king over a united Israel. This is the “restoration” of Israel under Christ (David). Those days, according to Ezekiel, would be when God's dwelling would be with Israel. Ezekiel wrote, “My dwelling place will be with them; I will be their God, and they will be my people” (Ezekiel 37:27).
Paul quotes this very verse in 2 Corinthians 6:16, which he saw as fulfilled in the church. "For we are the temple of the living God," Paul wrote, “...as God has said, 'I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God and they will be my people.’” What is of interest to us is that this cannot be the case if Israel is still awaiting a future restoration some 2,000 years after the time of their visitation from God in Christ! The context of Ezekiel is “in the days” of her restoration. Paul quotes that that was happening in his day.
Further, if we consider that Peter was addressing the scattered House of Israel, then 1 Peter 2:10 makes perfect sense. There, Peter wrote, “once you were not a people, but now (in Peter's day) you are people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.” Does this quote sound familiar? It should. Peter is alluding to Hosea 1:10. There, Hosea is prophesying to the House of Israel (not Judah). Hosea takes a wife (Gomer) and has a child, who the Lord called, “not my people” (lo ammi). Then, God promised them, “in the place where it was said, ‘you are not my people,’ they will be called the sons of the living God.”
Thus according to Peter, God was calling them in that generation “my people.” Israel was being raised from the dead, Judah was being reunited to the scattered house of Israel under one Lord: Jesus Christ. All Israel was being “saved.” To this Peter wrote to those readers, “you are a chosen generation.” It was Peter’s generation that saw the restoration of Israel “in the heavenlies” by the gospel, the power of God unto salvation! In short, God kept his promise.
We can even go further. The apostle Paul quotes Hosea 1:10 as well (Romans 9:25,26) and clearly states that this prophecy was being fulfilled in his day as it relates to the Gentiles coming into the promise of redemption.
Thus, these particular Hebrews, who were “not my people” were scattered among the nations (Gentiles) and were, in every sense of the word, Gentiles themselves. It was because of this that God could call all the Gentiles, both Hebrews and non-Hebrews “from every nation” because the promises made to Israel included that gathering of the “nations” (in the Greek, the word “nations” is also the word translated as “Gentiles").
Yet there are Christians today who believe that God has not yet kept his promise concerning Israel's restoration/resurrection in light of what the Bible actually says was occurring in the days of the holy apostles! As Preterists we affirm with Paul that, “Christ became a servant of the circumcision on behalf of God's truth, to confirm the promises made to the patriarchs, so that the nations may glorify God for his mercy” (Romans 15:8).
With that being said, then, I want to thank Mr. Lloyd for his insight. Now, we can continue our discussion of 2 Peter 3:1-13.
We finished verse 3 and noted that the scoffers were skeptical of their fellow Hebrews belief that the “parousia” would occur in their generation. It had been thirty years since Jesus announced that he would indeed come, that Jerusalem would be “encompassed by armies” (Luke 21:20), and the temple would be destroyed. Matthew 24:27 uses the same word as Peter (parousia – Strong’s 3952 – “coming,” “presence,” “arrival”). In the context of Matthew 24 Jesus clearly stated that Peter's generation would not all die until this parousia occurred. Thus, scoffers were on the scene, mocking this prediction. Peter is comforting them not to be troubled by these fools, because they too were prophesied about “in the last days.”
We now resume with verse 5. “But they deliberately forget....” Preterists pick up on everything, and this verse proves that these scoffers were contemporarily with these congregations. He is using the present tense. Now, wouldn*t it be considered a little strange that mockers were scoffing at the idea of the parousia 2,000 years ago? Peter states that “in the last days” these scoffers would come. If they were already there in Peter*s day, then it follows logically that Peter was living “in the last days.” The last days of what? Old covenant Judaism!
Hebrews 8:13 affirms, “by calling this covenant ‘new,* he has made the first one obsolete; and what is being made obsolete and aging will soon disappear.” What was going to “disappear?” What was then being made obsolete? Hebrews was written before AD 70. There are two conclusions that can be reached here. Either the old covenant is still in the process of “being made obsolete,” or it was “soon” to be made to disappear in the destruction of the nation of Israel. Again, it does not take a rocket scientist to make the connection.
This is the same context with Peter. He continues, “but they deliberately forget that heavens were of old and a land by water and through water having been held together by the word of God.” This is a literal rendering from the Greek. What is of interest here is that Peter used an imperfect verb for the “heavens were.” The imperfect tense is a past tense of completed action. The implication is that there is a “past” heavens and a "now" heaven.
Peter proceeds, “through which the then world, being overflowed with water, perished.” A “land” and “heavens” existed in the past, and Peter calls this “the then world.” This “world” perished, along with the heavens and a land. The word of God held this together, but it can also be demolished by that same word.
Now, we must comment on Peter*s understanding of the term “world.” If we applied the hyper-literalist approach, the world was destroyed with water, along with land and heavens. Did God, after the flood, create another “heavens” and “land” making a new “world” since the past one was destroyed? We would all say, “no.” As we proceed I will press this point about Peter*s language and make it clearer.
“But the now heavens and the land by the same word have been stored for fire, being kept in a day of judgment and destruction of the impious men.” Peter is alluding to the words of the Lord spoken to him on the Mount of Olives. “As in the days of Noah...” That was the “then world” of Noah, and it was destroyed. The “now heavens and the land” refer directly to those “deliberately forgetting” that destruction. They were mocking this coming destruction, and they refer directly to the Jewish people, the “impious men” of then Israel.
Now, it is on this score that some may object that it is a far leap to make “heavens and the land” refer to “the Land” of Israel and its “heavens.” On this objection we must note a few things. First, Peter calls Noah*s days a “world” with “then heavens and a land.” We know that the “heavens” were not destroyed then remade, literally. We also know that Noah landed on a mountain, which was there before as well, and still here to this day. So, what “world” was destroyed, or “perished?” The literal globe, moon and sun? Hardly.
Thus, it is shown that “world” can refer to a specific generation without implying the literal, physical cosmos of the universe, as well as Peter*s use of “heavens” and “a land”. We use the word today when we say the “wide world of sports,” or “he is in his own world,” or “Noah*s world.” The fact is, Noah*s world, with its “heavens and a land” perished and is no more. The now heavens and the Land” were also being kept for judgment by fire, the “world” of Judaism.
Does the Bible support our contention? Certainly. The Tabernacle was a copy of the heavenly one. It was a shadow of “heaven on the land.” For example, Isaiah saw the Lord lifted up, surrounded by cherubim. The ark of the covenant had two cherubim. The embroidery of the tent were pictures of cherubim (Exodus 26). God*s heavenly abode has a “holy place” and “most holy place” according to the author of Hebrews.
So, too, the earthly tabernacle had these. It was a pattern or copy of “the heavens.” This extremely documented fact in the Bible (a subject of rich typology) should settle the question. But I will add to it.
Isaiah 51:16 states, “And I have put my words into your (Zion) mouth, and in the shadow of my hand I hid you in order to plant the heavens and lay the foundation of the earth (or, “land”), and saying to Zion, you are my people.” What is this? God hid Zion in his hands in order to plant the heavens and the land in Zion. Zion, then, according to Isaiah, is a Land and Heavens in and of itself. There are other allusions like this in the Hebrew Bible, making it clear that Zion can be called a heavens and a land.
Also, as John Lightfoot (1602-1675) noted in his classic Commentary on the New Testament from the Talmud and Hebraica, the Rabbins frequently refer to Israel as “The Land.” Those not of the “Land” were called “those without the Land.” We find this confirmed in first century Jewish thinking in Paul. He states that the Gentiles were “outside” the “citizenship of Israel,” (Ephesians 2:12). Again, Josephus, the Jewish historian writing in the first century, compares the fabrics of the tabernacle as representing “the heavens and the land” (Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, 3.7.7).
Further, Jewish philosopher Moses Maiminides (1135-1168 AD) confirms the biblical view when he wrote that we should “understand the metaphor frequently employed by Isaiah.. .when (he) describes the ruin of a kingdom or nation as “the stars have fallen,” “the heavens are overthrown,” “the sun is darkened,” “the earth is laid waste and trembles,” and similar metaphors (from Guide for the Perplexed, p.204). Read how Isaiah describes the overthrow of Babylon in chapter 13. The Bible is full of this type of metaphor (called technically, “apocalyptic language”).
Again, I like to support my argument from the Bible and scholarship. The great Puritan minister, John Owen (17th century) wrote, “On this foundation I affirm, that the heavens and earth here intended in this prophecy of Peter, the coming of the Lord, the day of judgment, and perdition of ungodly men.., do all of them relate.. to that utter desolation and destruction that was to be made of the Judaical church and state” (The Works of John Owen, vol. 9, pp.132-135.138-139). Owen was not a preterist. Owen was a Reformed Calvinist, a Puritan minister and age renowned respected theologian, as was John Lightfoot, who presided over the Westminster Confession of Faith. Lightfoot asserted the same words as Owen.
Thus, we have the support of the Bible, the support of Jewish commentary, and the support of conservative scholarship that “heavens and the Land” in Peter refer to the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70. We will continue with the other verses next issue.
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