Bible Commentaries
2 Peter 3

Verses 1-18

XXIV

THE SECOND ADVENT AND THE JUDGMENT

2 Peter 3:1-18

We come now to the last chapter of 2 Peter. This chapter is on the second advent and the judgment which follows. 2 Peter 2 showed that these false teachers, by their doctrine and their disciples in their lives, held that judgment could not come upon men in this life, if they were Christians, by any kind of bad living, their theory being that sin resided in matter and not in the soul and that one could live just as wickedly as he pleased.

Now, men who hold that theory as to this life are very apt to hold the theory that they will never come into judgment, neither in this world nor in the world to come. They have no faith in the coming of the Judge who will summon them before his bar for a final verdict on the deeds done in the body. Their view of Jesus Christ, that he was just a man and that an eon, or emanation, entered him at birth and left him on the cross, would prevent them from having any true faith in the second advent of our Lord, and as they would not believe in his second coming, they would not believe in the certainty and the eternity of the judgment that would follow his second advent.

Now, that is what Peter is going to meet here. He says that he wants to stir up their sincere minds by putting them in remembrance of words spoken before by the holy prophets of the Old Testament and of the commandments of the Lord and Saviour through their apostles. The Old Testament prophets believed in a judgment to come; the Lord Jesus Christ himself preached a judgment to come, and the apostles of Jesus Christ preached a judgment to come. Peter says, "I want to stir up your minds now to remember that," and then he gives the reason: "Knowing this first, that in the last days mockers shall come with mockery, walking after their own lusts and saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for from the day that the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation."

In other words, men would mock at the idea of human accountability to God at the second advent; that Jesus is dead and gone and there is no coming back. One may go where he is, but he is not coming back here. And they based their argument – what they called a scientific argument – on the course of nature, natural law, the succession of events, i.e., "Since the fathers fell asleep everything continues just as it has done since the world was created." "The order of nature is an argument," says Hume, "stronger than any miracle." "The sun rose yesterday and will rise tomorrow as it has been rising every day since the creation, and this idea of the destruction of the material universe is unscientific and you need not be afraid of any such thing as that taking place."

Now that is what Peter is going to reply to and it is the most masterful argument that I ever heard or ever read. He says, first, that they wilfully forget that the world was created and dry land appeared compacted by the water and yet there did come a cataclysm by which the world that was, perished, a deluge over the whole earth over sixteen hundred years after the creation and those men rebuked Noah, saying, "You talk about the destruction of the world; why since the world was made there has just been a regular succession of events and the ocean has its barriers; ’here shall thy proud waves be staid,’ and what is the use to try to scare people by talking about a rain? It is unscientific. There can’t be a submersion of the whole world."

Some foolish people tell us that now; that there can be no such thing as a universal deluge. Peter refers to how there came to be an earth. Everything was in a chaotic, liquid state and God separated the waters, the waters above from the waters below by the firmament, that is, the atmosphere. All water turned into vapor, being lighter than air, rose as clouds and before it turned into vapor it was below the clouds. Now, in that way was brought about the appearance of dry land and God brought it about, by which means he says, being reversed or by a reversal of those means, he could bring about the deluge. If, when he stored up the waters in the seas and gathered the waters above the clouds, causing dry land to appear, by a reversal of that principle he can reduce the whole thing to a liquid mass again and the earth can be submerged as it once was. The whole of the earth was under water originally in the chaotic period.

Now, Peter says that event took place, notwithstanding -the scientific argument based on the law of nature and the continuity of events, i.e., the regular order of events. Peter admits that God promised that it should never any more be destroyed by water, but he says that the word of God that prophesied its destruction by water the first time, prophesied its destruction by fire the second time, and as water was stored up, so that when the time came the windows of heaven were opened and all the water above came down and the fountains of the great deep were broken up and all the waters in the earth’s system rose up and submerged the world, so God has stored up fire for the destruction of the earth the last time. And we have the same word of God for the one as we have for the other, and, as there was a universal deluge of water, so there will be a universal deluge of fire.

He goes on to show that the elements shall melt with fervent heat; that the ocean itself will be an ocean of flame. God has only to make one chemical change and fire will leap at once out of the bosom of the earth and out of the air and out of the water. Now, there is nothing in the word of God that is more abundantly taught than that this earth shall undergo a purgation of fire. The old prophets taught it. Malachi describes how, at the second advent, when the saints are caught up and God gathers his jewels and there is no longer any salt – spiritual salt – left upon the earth to preserve it, no longer any spiritual light to illuminate its darkness, no longer any missionaries interceding that the wicked may be spared. Just at that instant the whole earth will be wrapped in fire and the wicked shall become ashes under the feet of the righteous and while every living Christian will be changed, every living sinner, at that time, will be burned to death, physical death, but there will be a resurrection. That will be the day that tries by fire.

Now, having affirmed that doctrine he proceeds with his next argument. They say, "Where is the promise of his coming?" They have made their second argument on the time of the second advent. As an Old Testament prophet says, "Because sentence against an evil deed is not speedily executed the hearts of the children of men are set in them to do evil." Or, as a lawyer tells us, that what gives power to human law is, first, the certainty of punishment and, second, the speediness of it. Now, they apply that thought to a divine judgment. When a man first commits an offense he is a coward, he is afraid of a storm. He thinks, perhaps, God has commissioned some bolt of lightning to strike him. If a leaf falls he thinks it is the footstep of an enemy; if a man comes to meet him, he thinks he comes to bear him evil tidings. "The wicked flee when no man pursueth." But after a while when nothing catches him and he just goes on, he begins to draw breath and says, "There is nothing after me. I am all right. Surely if there was a God he would strike a murderer down, he would strike an adulterer down, he would not allow the innocent to be trampled upon," and he concludes from the tardiness of the second advent, the protracting of the time beyond human expectation, that it is not coming at all.

Now, Peter is going to meet that. He admits that the Lord said he would come quickly, and, that humanly speaking, he has not come quickly. Now what the explanation of it? The explanation is that he will come quickly as God means "quickly," and not as we understand "quickly." With God a thousand years are as one day, and one day is as a thousand years. He is not slack about the promise as men count slackness, but there is an explanation of the long-deferred second advent and the general judgment, and he proceeds to give that explanation.

He says that the reason of it is that God willeth not the death of men and desires that all men should come to a knowledge of repentance, and he postpones the day of judgment through his long-suffering, merely to give opportunity for more people to be saved, and that is the construction one must put upon the long-suffering of God. He must count that the longsuffering of God means salvation.

Here he refers to the letters of Paul. He says, "As brother Paul hath written you." Peter is writing to the Hebrews of the dispersion in Asia Minor and says, "Brother Paul hath written you a letter and as in all of his letters he bears out the view which I am presenting to you) and you must put that construction upon it."

And how profoundly this is brought out in Paul’s letter to the Hebrews! There Paul says, "Though he tarry) he will come and not tarry." Because he didn’t come to avenge them of their adversaries, some of them wanted to quit and turn loose. Now Peter quotes Paul and includes all of Paul’s letters, and some of the letters were written to that class of Jews, and one letter most particularly, namely, Hebrews. He says, "Even as our beloved brother Paul also, according to the wisdom given to him, wrote unto you," and he admits that in Paul’s letter there are some things hard to be understood, and we will agree to that, because he was the most profound philosopher of the gospel dispensation. He considered every aspect of salvation. He carried it out from its incipiency in the love of God before the foundation of the world and in the foreknow- ledge, predestination, and election of God to its consummation in glorification, and in dealing with these vast mysteries there are some things hard to be understood, which they that are not steadfast or are unlearned wrest to their own destruction.

For instance, in speaking to the Galatians he said, "Stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made you free." Now, the Antinomian says, "You see that? That means liberty. You are not under bondage to the law. Christ nailed the law to the cross, therefore you can lie and steal and do anything you please." Now that is wresting the Scriptures to their own destruction. Paul spoke of the second advent to the Thessalonians and they concluded that if that was so, it was not worth while to do any more work, just quit work and deed away all their property. All that anybody would need was about three days’ rations and an ascension robe. So they wrested the Scriptures.

We now come to the most important part of the chapter. He says, in 2 Peter 3:10, "But the day of the Lord will come as a thief; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise and the elements shall be dissolved with fervent heat and the earth and the works that are therein shall be burned up. Seeing that these things are thus all to be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy living and godliness, looking for and earnestly desiring the coming of the day of God." That is the exhortation and practical application.

But now that climax thought that I referred to is 2 Peter 3:13: "But, according to his promise, we look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness." Paul takes up the same thing in his letter to the Romans. He says, "The whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain until now, being made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who subjected the same in hope," and that on that day of the redemption of our bodies, the earth itself shall be redeemed and out of the fires that burn up the world (not annihilate it any more than the flood annihilated it) there shall come a new world, and new heavens bending above us and upon that new earth no wicked man will ever put his foot and no slimy serpent will leave his trail, but the saints shall inherit the earth and from one end of the earth to the other it shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord and as holy as heaven is holy.

In the book of Revelation we have the account of the condition after the judgment is over, after the fire has taken place. John says, "I saw a new heaven and a new earth, and I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, as a bride adorned for her husband, coming down," the redeemed people coming down to the new, purified earth to be the abode of the righteous forever, not that they are to be restricted to living upon the earth, but he means to say that this very earth which has been the abode of wickedness and stained with crimes and whose oceans which have engulfed their thousands and millions shall give up their dead and the earth shall belong to the people of God and the saints shall inherit the earth. God will redeem the physical earth as well as the people upon the earth.

Now he closes this letter by stating: "Therefore, beloved, knowing these things beforehand, beware lest being carried away by the error of the wicked, ye fall from your steadfastness. But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ." That is one of the greatest texts of the Bible: "Grow in the grace and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ." Spurgeon, in his sermon on that text, says, "You grow in grace as you grow in knowledge. Every new thing you learn about the grace of God, not theoretically, but in your heart experimentally, and apply it in your life, that knowledge enables you to grow in grace."

QUESTIONS

1. What the connection between 2 Peter 3 and the preceding chapter?

2. What the views of the Gnostic teachers which bear on the second advent of our Lord?

3. What appeal does Peter make here and what the teaching of these different authorities?

4. What reason does he assign?

5. What the argument of the mockers and on what did they base their argument?

6. What Hume’s statement on this point?

7. What Peter’s argument in reply?

8. What theory here advanced as to God’s method of bringing the flood?

9. What the Old Testament testimony on this point?

10. What the second argument of these mockers and on what Old Testament teaching may it be based?

11. How does Peter meet it?

12. What Peter’s reference to Paul here, what the point involved and what does he say of Paul’s writings?

13. Why might we expect Paul’s writings to be hard to understand? Illustrate.

14. What the attending events of the second advent according to Peter here?

15. What his exhortation based thereon?

16. What the climax thought of all this discussion by Peter and what the corroborative testimony of Paul and John?

17. What his second exhortation (2 Peter 3:14)?

18. What his final exhortation, what great sermon cited on it and what the line of thought in it?