24) “Where Is The Promise Of His Coming?”
2 Peter 3
There are more real difficulties in the
exposition of this familiar prophecy than those who use it with such vigour are
usually prepared to recognize. The first, and main problem is this: When Peter
wrote these words, did he have his eye on A.D. 70 and “the Last Days of
Judah’s Commonwealth,” or was his expectation ranging forward to the
twentieth century?
Dr. Thomas gave the first of these two answers.
Most Christadelphian expositors of the present day give the second. What are the
pros and cons?
The case for a First Century application will be
summarized first, with rather less detail than Dr. Thomas was in the habit of
allowing himself:
- The words of the scoffers are: “Where is the promise of
his coming, for since the Fathers fell asleep, all things continue as
they were from the beginning of “the Creation” (v. 4). Such
expressions, with their allusion to Abraham and David and to Genesis 1-3, would
readily be made by Jewish adversaries of the gospel in Peter’s own time,
but read strangely as the cynical objection of modern
sceptics.
- The allusion to “scoffers in the last
days” is surely taken — and with what appropriateness! — from
2 Chronicles 36:16, which describes how in the last days of the Kingdom of Judah
men mocked the messengers of God and scoffed at His prophets (the Septuagint
Version has the same word as Peter uses), until at last there came wrath from
God, the destruction of the temple, and the scattering of the people in
captivity.
- Jude 17, 18 quotes Peter’s words about
the “mockers in the last time” (the reference to 2 Peter 3 is
unmistakable), and immediately continues: “These are they...,” as
though seeing the fulfilment already taking
shape.
- Verse 5a: “this (the story of Creation and
of the Flood) they willingly are ignorant of.” The words imply an
authoritative record, which the scoffers know, as well as Peter does, but the
implications of which they deliberately fail to face up
to.
- Verse 11: “Seeing then that all these things
shall be dissolved ...” Almost all the translations conspire to push this
into the future, yet actually Peter used a present continuous tense,
requiring the words to be read thus: “all these things (already)
dissolving thus...” Certainly it is difficult to associate such a verb
form with the distant future (from Peter’s point of
view).
- Verses 11, 12: “What manner of persons
ought ye to be in all holy living and godliness, looking for and hasting
the coming of the day of God.” Three points require to be noted here: (a)
the AV reading: “hasting unto” is permissible but in this context
meaningless. How can a man hasten unto the coming of Christ? To make sense of it
this way the word has to be slanted or paraphrased so drastically as to drag it
clean away from its proper meaning; (b) “what manner of persons ought
ye (first century believers) to be...” — the exhortation has
little point if there were yet nearly two milleniums to roll by; (c) since so
long a time has elapsed before the return of the Lord, their “holy living
and godliness” either were not in evidence or else did not have much
effect in “hastening the coming.”
- Verse 8:
“with the Lord ...a thousand years is as one day.” The words are
taken from Psalm 90: 4, a psalm of Moses about the forty years of hardship
endured by God’s Israel in the wilderness. Then can it be that Peter saw
that experience as a parallel to his own generation? As the forty years in the
establishment of the Kingdom of God under Joshua-Jesus followed the wilderness,
so the overturning of the church’s greatest adversary — Judaism,
would follow the A.D. 30-70 period enthroned in
Jerusalem.
- Verse 10, which seems to be the sheet-anchor
of the “twentieth century” exposition, actually goes along with the
A.D. 70 applications just as well. “The heavens shall pass away with a
great noise” finds a parallel in Psalm 102: 26, words which are cited in
Hebrews 1: 10, 11 with reference to the end of the Mosaic order: “the
heavens are the works of thy hands: they shall perish, but thou remainest; and
they all shall wax old as doth a garment...” Isaiah 51: 6 has the same
idiom: “the heavens shall vanish away like smoke...but my salvation shall
be for ever, and my righteousness shall not be abolished.” There can be
little doubt that this is a prophecy of the passing of the Law and the bringing
in of the imputed righteousness proclaimed in the
gospel.
- “The elements shall be dissolved
(unloosed) with fervent heat.” Justin Martyr and others understood this
word “elements” to refer to heavenly bodies. In which case it is not
inappropriate to mention that just before the fall of Jerusalem Halley’s
Comet was visible for a protracted period, “hanging over the city like a
drawn sword.” But the Biblical association of “elements” is
with the ordinances of the Law of Moses: Galatians 4: 3, 9; Colossians 2: 8, 20.
With the burning of the Temple, the exact keeping of the Law became an utter
impossibility.
- “The earth also and the
works that are therein shall be burned up.” The Greek word here
could equally well refer to the Land of Israel. It is so used in the New
Testament in at least twenty places — and many more times in the
Septuagint Version. So this passage speaks of judgement on the Land where all
emphasis is on works and not on
faith.
This catalogue of supporting evidence makes a
fairly strong case. But another look, this time at the other side of the picture
reveals certain features in this prophecy, which seem to require reference to
the personal return of
Christ.[32]
- “Where is the promise of his coming?” is a phrase
difficult to refer to any manifestation of divine judgement except the personal
revelation of Christ in glory.
- “The day of the
Lord will come as a thief in the night” (v. 10). This figure of speech
always refers to the return of Christ in the Last Day: Matthew 24: 43; Luke 12:
39; 1 Thessalonians 5: 2; Revelation 16: 15. The fall of Jerusalem did not come
“as a thief in the night,” for disciples of Christ in the city were
able to read the signs of the times and make good their
escape.
- “Looking for and hastening the coming of
the day of God” (v. 12) cannot be applied to A.D. 70 at all, for it is not
possible to believe that that holocaust was hastened by the faithfulness of
Christ’s disciples.
- “New heavens and a new
earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness” (v. 13) can only mean the bringing
in of Christ’s Kingdom, as in Isaiah 65: 17; 66: 22; Revelation 22:
1,27.
- “Be diligent that ye may be found of him in
peace, without spot, and blameless” (v. 14) can likewise mean only one
thing: the day when Christ returns with blessing for his
faithful.
Thus the situation has come about that a vital
chapter of Bible prophecy is expounded by two schools of thought in two
radically different ways, neither group giving much attention to the evidence
cited by the other — which is hardly a satisfactory attitude to
adopt.
O.T. METHODS APPLIED
There is a way out of the impasse — by
following the method of interpretation normally applied to many an Old Testament
prophecy.
It is commonplace experience with Bible prophecy
to find that such Scriptures often have more than one fulfilment. Psalm 72,
“a psalm for Solomon,” will have its true fulfilment in the Kingdom
of Christ. Psalm 2 doubtless sprang out of some critical experience in
David’s own life, but is applied by the New Testament to the first
rejection of Christ (Acts 4: 25-27) and also to his coming again in glory
(Revelation 19: 15; 2:27). Nearly all of Isaiah’s prophecy had reference
to the circumstances of his own time, but in a score of places the New Testament
requires an application to Christ and his work. The early chapters of Zechariah
are based on the return of the captives from Babylon but are also undoubtedly
Messianic. The Olivet Prophecy is in two main sections—the first
appropriate to A.D. 70 and the troubles immediately preceding it, and second
concerning the coming of the Lord. But it has been shewn in chapter 14 that the
first section should also be re-read with reference to the Last Days. There are
many many more examples of this kind of thing.
Then why is it that the study of Prophecy in the
New Testament makes so little allowance for the same principle? Strange, truly,
that so many Old Testament prophecies should readily be expounded on the basis
of a dual fulfilment but the same possibility for the greatest prophecy of all
— the Apocalypse — not be even contemplated! But that is another
subject. Here it is more germane to suggest that the key to the difficulties in
2 Peter 3 lies in its application, first and in a fragmentary way, to the Last
Days of Judah’s Commonwealth, and then, fully and completely, to the Day
of the Lord’s personal return.
The rest of this chapter will be devoted to a
consideration of some of the outstanding details in it, from the second of these
points of view.
HEAVENS AND EARTH
A difficulty of some magnitude arises out of the
five-fold reference to “heavens and earth” (vv. 5, 7,10,12,13). The
first of these is undoubtedly literal—a straight allusion to the Creation
(Genesis 1: 6, 9). The last is just as certainly symbolic, as the parallel
passages plainly require. The problem is: how to read the other three? It is
difficult to be certain about this, but probably they are to be taken literally,
in a way that will be suggested by and by.
Peter’s first argument against the mockers
is this: They choose to overlook the fact that that which God constituted and
equipped in Genesis 1 He later destroyed in Genesis 7 — the implication
being that what He has done once He may well do again. All things do not
continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. Peter was obviously
writing with a vivid memory of his Lord’s own words: “Even as it was
in the days of Noah, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of Man”
(Luke 17: 26).
But though the main point of the Deluge allusion
is clear enough, the details are obscure. What is the point of describing the
earth as “standing out of the water and in the water”? And the word
“whereby” (literally: by means of which things) appears to be
redundant, unless perhaps it refers back to the heavens and earth being the
source of the overwhelming flood. A retranslation is perhaps permissible here:
“... that of old the heavens were, and the earth (emerging) out of the
water, and by (or, in) the Word of God through water it endured (i.e. the earth
itself was saved by being baptized!), through which things the civilization that
then was, being overwhelmed by water, perished.
STORED WITH FIRE
There is appropriateness in reading here an
allusion to the fact that in Noah’s day destruction came from both earth
and heaven (see Genesis 7:11), because Peter’s next argument is that in
the time to come once again destruction will come from both earth and heaven:
“But the heavens and the earth which are now, by (or, in) the same Word
(of God) have been stored with fire against the day of judgement and
perdition of ungodly
men.”[33]
Until August 1945 it was difficult to make any sense at all of these words. To
give them a vague figurative meaning was almost the best that could be done with
them, yet such an interpretation only created another problem — the
contrast with the literal “heavens and earth” of verse 5. But since
that epoch-making day of the first atomic bomb, the literal character of this
prophecy has become increasingly obvious. Today the earth is literally
“stored with fire.” America and Russia between them have a stock of
nuclear-fission devices big enough to wipe out civilization two or three times
over. And there is reason to believe that the heavens also are “stored
with fire,” in view of the immense amount of controlled
“hardware” which has been put into orbit round the earth, much of it
capable of being brought back on any selected target. The phenomenal development
of laser beams opens up another breathtaking possibility in the fulfilment of
Peter’s words. Certainly there is far less difficulty today in a literal
reading of them than there is in any figurative interpretation which might be
suggested.
It is interesting to enquire where these things
are foretold “in the same Word of God.” In what part of the Old
Testament? So far, the best answer available has been Isaiah 24:21, which speaks
of judgement on those who make war in two elements—on the earth and in the
sky: “And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall punish
the host of the high ones that are on high, and the kings of the earth upon the
earth.” But there is probably some other prophecy, which is more pointed
than this.
So far Peter’s answer to the mockers’
criticism about “delay” is: Noah’s Flood may have seemed long
overdue, but it came; and since the Word of God also foretells judgement by
fire, that too is inevitable.
PETER’S NEXT
ARGUMENT
This point is immediately supplemented with the
appropriate reminder that “One day is with the Lord as a thousand
years,” that is, when He chooses God can act with such breath-taking
swiftness as to bring about in one day developments for which men would estimate
a thousand years. It is a point which needs to be well taken by those who are in
the habit of assuring themselves, and others, that the coming of the Lord is
still an appreciable length of time away because such and such events have to
happen first. Peter’s words mean that, even if these confident
interpretations of prophecy are correct, God may bring about their fulfilment
with such startling suddenness that the call concerning “the
Bridegroom” will come to virgins who are asleep.
Also, this powerful statement is another nail in
the coffin of the theorists who believe that the year of the Lord’s return
can be calculated in advance. The logic of Peter’s words means a possible
error of as much as a thousand years in one’s calculations, so the
exercise is one of somewhat limited value.
“And a thousand years as one day.”
This rather bewildering paradox must surely mean that it is idle to talk of
“delay” where God is concerned. To Him delay means nothing, so great
is His time-scale. A “delay” of a thousand years would be comparable
to being one day off reckoning in the life of a human being.
CLIMAX
Next comes the great positive statement of
this chapter: “The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men
count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should
perish, but that all should come to repentance.” In other words, any
apparent delay is due to the loving kindness of a God reluctant to snatch away
from His creatures their unused opportunity of salvation. It is a principle much
neglected by the present generation, yet taught over and over again in
Scripture. Twice more Peter comes back to it in this chapter: “be
diligent, that ye may be found of him in peace, without spot, and blameless. And
account that the longsuffering of our Lord is (your opportunity for)
salvation” (vv. 14, 15). More positively: “What manner of persons
ought ye to be in all holy living and godliness, looking for and hastening the
coming of the day of God” (vv. 11, 12). That is to say, lack of true
repentance in God’s people may have the effect of holding back the
fulfilment of His purpose, and conversely, repentance and godliness will bring
the great Day so much more speedily.
The same idea is implicit (some would think
explicit) in the words of Peter in Acts 3: 19, 20 RV: “Repent ye
therefore, and be converted,” that three blessed consequences may ensue:
(a) “that your sins may be blotted out;” (b) “that there may
come seasons of refreshing from the presence of the Lord;” (c) “and
that he may send Jesus Christ, which before was preached unto you.” When
the structure of this statement is properly appreciated, the third item in it
makes the coming of the Lord dependent on the repentance and conversion of the
Israel of God (both national and spiritual).
This is an awe-inspiring doctrine, for it puts on
the believer of the present day a terrible responsibility. By his holy life and
godliness he has it in his power to bring the day of Christ’s kingdom
nearer. It is also true that a life of selfish indifference and faithlessness
may put the brake on God’s purpose for the re-habilitation of a sick
world.
NUCLEAR DESTRUCTION?
Peter’s argument in answer to the
unreasonable is now done. There remains only for him to renew his exhortation to
those who are willing to take his words seriously. A solemn and powerful
reminder of the inevitable judgement does this. It will come “as a thief
in the night” to those who are not “looking for the coming of the
day of God.” It will involve terrible happenings in which “the
elements shall melt with fervent heat.” The most obvious application of
these words is to nuclear fission, especially since the next words are
“the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.”
In the detonation of any nuclear device, the elements do literally melt with
fervent heat. Even in this connection, Justin Martyr’s reference to
heavenly bodies may not be altogether out of place, when it is considered what a
wide variety of contraptions have been flung into orbit round the earth in the
past few years. Yet another suggestion, decidedly ad hoc, is that
Peter’s words may be fulfilled through the earth’s gravitational
acquisition of an uncomfortably large lump of anti-matter from outer space
— something like the so-called Siberian meteorite of 1908. But
speculations of this sort, whilst within the bounds of possibility, are clean
outside the scope of Biblical study and therefore of this
investigation.
It has to be said in all honesty that as yet the
present writer has been unable to assign any sort of clear-cut idea to the
words: “the heavens shall pass away with a great noise.” The word
“noise” may encourage a nuclear interpretation (compare Isaiah 24:
18), but what is meant by “the heavens shall pass away”? There is
confidence only in a rejection of the idea that this is a symbolic way of
saying: “all human government will be abolished.”
Whatever horrors are yet to be experienced, there
is little to be feared by the Lord’s faithful. They “look for
the coming of the day of God.” They “look for new heavens
and earth wherein dwelleth righteousness.” And since they “look
for such things,” they “give diligence to be found of him in
peace.” The two characteristics go hand in hand. According to the
intensity of a man’s expectation and confidence, so is his
diligence.
[32] The point
needs to be made that not in any sense was A.D. 70 a second coming of Christ.
All the prophecies of the fall of Jerusalem represent it as the wrath of God
because of the rejection of His Son, e.g. Luke 20:15, 16. Let the parable in
Luke 13: 6-9 be studied carefully and the characters identified. Then let the
pronoun “thou” be given its due force. Similarly, the
“he” in Mark 12: 9 needs to be carefully
identified.
[33] Mark the
lovely contrast in 1 Peter 1:4.
