Restoration Ministries | home
(2 Peter 3:1-13 -- Part 3)
by Sam Frost
________________________________________________________________
The notion that is being challenged is that this passage unquestionably refers to the literal destruction of the entire universe. Peter does not say it will be “transformed,” but that it will be “destroyed by fire” and “melt like wax” with the “elements” burning (v.10).
The “elements,” according to this view, are the protons, neutrons, atoms, and molecules (we will explore this view next issue). That is the strict literal understanding of many for this text. To properly understand Peter we will consider the Greek text, commentaries from reputable authors and most importantly the Bible, the “whole counsel of God,” on the matter, and see if the Bible speaks with the vocabulary of Peter in other places. And, of course, that ever important matter of “context.” Who is Peter addressing? When did Peter write? What was the historical conditions around them? How would they have understood Peter*s message?
One charge that is quite odd is that Preterism makes the Bible irrelevant by applying “everything to the past.” First off, the charge is groundless, because it is untrue. The Birth of Jesus is foretold in the Prophets, and fulfilled in the Gospels. Since it is fulfilled, and there will be no other virgin births of Messiah, does that make the passage that foretold the now fulfilled event irrelevant?
The Book of Revelation has been treated as largely unfulfilled, thus irrelevant to the generation of saints to which it was given! Why must we insist that Peter*s congregation was not a real, heart-pumping people? Did Peter*s message “apply” to them? Peter explicitly told his congregation, “in the last days scoffers will come, asking, ‘where is this parousia you promised?’” Jesus told Peter point blank: “for as lightning comes forth. . . . so will be the parousia of the son of man.” Then Jesus added in Peter*s ear, ‘this, your generation, Peter, will not pass away until all these things are fulfilled.” Thus, Peter was promised by Jesus Himself that there would be a parousia, a divine visitation, in his generation.
If the promise was made known to that generation that the parousia was going to occur, surrounding the events of Israel*s earthly demise, then quite clearly, 30 years after it was promised, scoffers would come asking, “Where is this parousia, Peter? You said it was going to come, and it has not come in 30 years! Where is it, Peter? Maybe you were wrong!”
Strong words. Scoffing words. If the parousia does not happen, Peter is a liar. Worse, Jesus is a liar, because He* s the one that told Peter he would come “before some of you tasted death” (Matthew 16:28). Peter is up against the wall here. God made a promise to those disciples. Would He keep it?
Peter makes it clear that these “scoffers” were contemporary in his days. Jude 18 uses the same word as Peter. Jude wrote, “Be mindful of the words previously spoken by the apostles. . .because they told you,’at the last time will be mockers.’” Jude made it plain that these men were contemporary as well.
We have made that a point to note. If the Apostles were clearly teaching, beyond any shadow of a doubt, in simple, child-like terms that Jesus* parousia was possibly not going to occur until thousands of years removed from their generation, then why are scoffers mocking the promise in Peter*s own day? Peter could simply instruct his own followers to respond by saying, “Listen, we never said it was going to happen in our generation; it could be a thousand generations before he returns.” Thus he would effectively defeat their mockery.
Secondly, mockers scoff at something they have heard, and disagree with. The message they were ridiculing must have been preached by the apostles (according to Jude 18). That message was that the parousia would occur in their time, in their days. The scoffers are mocking this and asking, “where is it?” The Futurist turns Peter into little more than the boy who cried wolf. Where is the wolf? Well, the boy made it up. He was a liar. This point has never been answered successfully. It is usually dismissed. But it is not being dismissed by loyal students of the Bible anymore.
In his commentary on II Peter, the late Gordon Clark made the following points:
1. “The doubt [of the scoffers] must be based on the length of time since the ascension.”
2. “Some thirty years had elapsed between the resurrection and the writing of Peter.”
3. “Many of these Christians in these thirty years have died.”
4. “From Acts 1:6-7 it is incontestable that these people had expected Christ to return in their lifetimes” (New Heavens, New Earth: A Commentary On First and Second Peter, Trinity Foundation, 1993, p.226).
Clark was not a Preterist (he had some partial-preterist leanings, but he never seems to have spent a great deal of time on eschatology). Clark, a master logician, is oblivious to the implications of his view. But, he is also a master of Greek. He knows what the text meant to them and applied it to them. The thing is, you cannot have inspired prophets “incontestably” believing in the parousia of Christ only to be wrong! This crushes biblical inspiration! A liberal can see this and merely ask, “What else are they wrong on in their beliefs?” Clark never saw the implications, and from my years of reading him, never made the attempt, either.
I can pick up virtually any commentary, like the Pulpit Commentary, and read, “The Lord had promised his coming; St. Paul had spoken more than once as if that coming were very near at hand. Yet he came not” (Pulpit Commentary: Peter, John, Jude, Funk and Wagnells Company). The Rev. B.C. Caffin, MA, wrote those startling words. “Peter wrote as if it were near, and scoffers were mocking him, and it came not. The scoffers were right!”
We noted before, also, that Peter*s language was quite odd for literalists. For he wrote that Noah*s “world” (kosmos) was “destroyed” along with its “heavens and a land.” But, we argued, were the “heavens” destroyed in the flood? Did God make a new sun after the flood? Did he make a “new heavens” after the flood (see Heavens and Land Destroyed)? And how about the “world” and the “land?” Noah landed on an existing mountain top that was there since creation! It was not destroyed. Did God make a “new land” after Noah*s flood? The absurdity of such a view becomes apparent.
The point from these verses is that Peter wrote, “but the now heavens and the land” are reserved for fire. Ask yourself this question honestly. If the “then” heavens and the land of Noah are the same heavens and the land Peter was speaking of from a geological/literal point of view, then why suppose that the geological/literal heavens and the land are going to pass away in Peter*s day anymore than they did in Noah*s day?
The heavens and land (which Peter calls “the then world”) did not “perish” literally in Noah*s day. Yes, there was destruction and people died, but this suggests that the culture that perished can be called the “then world” with a “heavens” and a “land.” They are the same clouds, and same solar system that Peter was under. Thus, it is clear that a “heavens and a land” can be “destroyed” without the literal universe being annihilated. That is why we quoted from John Owen and John Lightfoot, two respected men of Reformed history. They saw the textual implications. Hal Lindsey does not.
A recent book entitled The End of All Things: A Defense of the Future by C. Jonathan Seraiah (Canon Press, 1999) endorses the view we are expounding here (p. 54, 64n.9). Many other “partial-preterists” like Seraiah take this view as well. They all utilize John Owen and John Lightfoot, as well as Milton Terry and J.S. Russell. Kenneth Gentry (who does not interpret this passage in this fashion), Andrew Sandlin, Richard Pratt (who apparently holds that Peter was advocating a “delayed” coming of the Lord), and R.C. Sproul, Jr. endorse Seraiah*s book.
What is interesting is that this book is directed against Preterism! A list of endorsements is no proof that a view is correct, but it does say this: that if there is a list of scholars in the conservative schools, then the matter must be investigated on each side. Any courtroom will follow this procedure to arrive at what constitutes the best evidence for the best, most plausible defense.
When Jeremiah looked upon the land of Judah, in a vision, concerning the destruction of Jerusalem in 589 B.C. by the Babylonians, he wrote, “My anguish! My anguish! I writhe in pain, the walls of my heart is beating wildly. My heart! I cannot keep silent, for the sound of the trumpet I hear! The alarm of war! Disaster upon disaster follows hard. The Land (earth — Hebrew, eretz) is laid waste. The whole Land (whole earth) suddenly! My tents, in a moment, my curtains!. . .1 looked on the Land (earth) and Lo! Waste and void. And the heavens. And the heavens had no light! I looked on the mountains and Lo! They were quaking and all the hills moved to and fro. I looked and there was no man, and all the birds of the air had fled. I looked, and the fruitful Land (Judah) was a desert and all its cities were laid in ruins before the LORD, before His fierce anger” (Jeremiah 4:19-26). This is one of several examples than can be given in the highly intense language of the prophets.
Peter was a prophet. He knew Jerusalem was going to be “laid waste,” as well. He knew what was coming. Is it seriously to be suggested that Jeremiah languished in pain over the destruction of Jerusalem, but Peter, facing the very same event in his generation could care less? He was an apostle in Jerusalem. He lived there. He knew the people. He was raised around the temple. He was a Hebrew. And he knew what was coming because his Lord had told him.
And, as in the days of Jeremiah they mocked and said, “peace, peace.” But there was no peace. There will be nothing but disentegration. “God will not destroy this Temple, Peter, you are foolish! Where is this so called parousia and day of the Lord against the Temple you talk about?” And yet, for comparing Peter to Jeremiah, Preterists are “splitting hairs,” when both prophets of God faced the very same tragedy to their own people.
Paul wrote, “I say the truth in Christ, I lie not.. . that I have great grief and incessant pain in my heart, for I was praying that I myself be a curse (anathema) from Christ on behalf of my brothers, the kinsmen of me according to the flesh, who are Israelites” (Romans 9:1-4a). Why? Could it be that he knew that “the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven” and that “the wrath has come upon them (the Jews) to the uttermost?” (1 Thessalonians 2:14-16) . Historical context demands it!
Verse 8 is perhaps the most abused verse in the entire Bible: “but, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing: that one day with the Lord is a thousand years, and a thousand years is as one day. (9) The Lord is not slow of the promise as some men calculate slowness...”
Let me render this in the MFT (Modern Futurist Translation): “The Lord promised to come in our generation, before some of us standing before him would die, and that all these things would be fulfilled in our time, and we have preached to you that we are in the last days, as well as have told you repeatedly that the time is at hand, and very near. But, all of this matters not, for, in man*s time, 'near,' 'at hand,' 'generation,' 'some of you standing here shall not die' and like phrases may mean to God*s time thousands of years into the future of man*s time. Thus, when you hear us inspired apostles tell you that the time is at hand, pay no attention to earthly ways of calculating, because time to the Lord is completely different from our time. God changed in the past, so maybe He is repenting from calamity once again. The best we can say of our time is that the Lord is near, maybe, perhaps, we really don*t know, but we are going to say it anyway: The time is at hand, so at least pretend that he could come, although, we really don*t know, since he could come thousands of years after we, beloved, are long, long dead. So be of good cheer!”
A long translation, yes, but it speaks for itself. I have incorporated all of the arguments that have been proposed against our interpretation for this is logically what the Futurist has to come up with. And you know what? They believe this!
The Apostolic Fathers (late first century to 180 AD) also used this very verse to “delay” the parousia into the future based on what they interpreted Peter as saying according to a Greek mindset and not according to a biblical mindset (I cover this fully in my book, Misplaced Hope). In the Greek mindset of the then philosophy of Atomism (materialism and Stoicism), the material globe would dissolve in a great conflagration.
In the biblical mindset, and in Peter*s, “heavens and the land” destruction need not mean a literal destruction of the universe, even though it employs de-creation language. The biblical imagery of the Prophets proves this again and again, in text after text, after text. The church on this issue has inherited a Greek conflagration theory instead of a covenantal destruction in terms of a universal collapse theory. I reiterate: Noah*s heavens were not destroyed literally. Yet, Peter says they were. Read the verse yourself. The “then world perished.” The “then heavens” were destroyed. Literally?
The verses we are on now plainly explain themselves. After Peter alludes to Psalm 90:4 (read it), he then interprets the meaning, “The Lord is not slow of the promise as some men count slowness.” What men? The scoffers! “Where is this promise?” What promise? The promise of the parousia! When did God say he would come? “In this generation.”
Some men were counting the thirty years after Jesus said those words as slowness, and Peter is saying, “Listen, beloved, God will keep His promise. He is not slow. A thousand years to Him is like a day, so what is 30 years? He will come just like He said He would. Take heart!” Which, honestly, is more plausible? The Modern Futurist Translation or the alternative? Hebrews 10:37 nails the lid of the Futurist interpretation shut: “For in just a very, very little while He who is coming, He will come and He will not delay!” This is the literal Greek translation.
Peter uses the same verb “will come” in verse 10, “but the day of the Lord will come. . .“ We can add, “without delay” and “in just a very, very little while.” Thus, Peter is not teaching that since time to God is different, God is going to “delay” what He promised. There is nothing here that indicates this whatsoever. It is simply a false device to interpret Peter based on the false assumption that Peter*s language can only refer to the literal destruction of the universe, and since that obviously did not happen, Peter is contending for delay.
Peter uses Noah*s “day” as an example. God told Noah to prepare a large boat because in Noah*s day, God was going to destroy the people. When Noah entered, God said, “Seven days from now I will send rain..” (Genesis 7:4). Delay? Contingency? Maybe God meant 7,000 years from Noah*s day. Maybe He wanted Noah to simply be “ready” just in case. No. Noah acted on what God said to his generation. Destruction is coming, Noah, prepare! Imagine if Noah had in mind the strange interpretative devices men have used for Peter*s words!
We will explore the further comparisons of Noah*s day to Peter*s. The Bible makes plain statements between these two episodes. Next month, I will conclude our study of 2 Peter3:1-13. By now, hopefully, you are beginning to see that there is another solution than that which has traditionally been taught. Let*s keep Peter in his own context, in his own day, so that we might obey the God who inspired him. Blessings in the Name.
______________________________________________________________
The Millennial Post is a free newsletter to any who ask. If you want to add anyone to the list, please let us know by writing to: TMP P.0. Box 531074 St. Petersburg, FL 33747. This is a teaching/ministry service of Samuel Frost, MA, and Christ Covenant Church. Donations are welcome, though at this time it cannot be used as a tax write-off. All material is copyrighted by Samuel M. Frost. Permission must be asked before any material is reprinted or distributed. Make all checks payable to Christ Covenant Church.
________________________________________________________________________
More on 2 Peter 3:1-13