2 Peter 3

2 Peter 3:1-18

Division 3. (2 Peter 3:1-18.)The death and resurrection of the earth. And now we come to what has been noticed as peculiar to Peter among the writers of these inspired epistles, although the apostle John will treat of it more in detail in the prophecy which closes the books of Scripture. We may expect from the apostle of the circumcision a reference to that which was already a promise in the Old Testament itself, and which has to do with the judgment, and yet the renovation, of that earth with which Israel’s promises are always connected. The whole fashion of this world is to pass away. As the earth, as we know it now, has had already its baptism of water, so it is yet to have its baptism of fire. The scene of sin and corruption and death must itself be purged from all that reminds of this. And this, as we have already seen in Titus, lies beyond that which we have learnt to speak of as the millennial time of blessing, which is but, after all, “the regeneration,” and not the perfect state, which alone satisfies God. Peter gives us, indeed, but a mere glimpse of this; and the description of the after-prophecy is little more than such a glimpse; yet there is that in it which has the deepest interest and instruction as to the ways of God, ways which are the necessary outcome of His own nature.

1. First of all here, the apostle once more brings before us the lawless ones of the last days, now, indeed, in another character, as infidel scoffers against all that threatens their own security in evil. In stirring up the minds of those he addresses, by putting them in remembrance of the words both of Israel’s holy prophets and of the later commandment of the Lord and Saviour by the apostles, he would have them understand and note especially the coming of mockers in the last days, their infidelity taught them by the lusts they seek to gratify. These have an argument which is already, in certain quarters, beginning to show itself. They ask: “Where is the promise of His coming?” and they assert that all things continue, in fact, as they were from the beginning of the creation. It is the argument of “uniformity,” only thoroughly carried out; and the judgment of God by the flood is ignored as men have of late been seeking to ignore it.

What proof have we of the flood that can be derived from the great teacher, science? Science has, in fact, been giving its voice of late in correspondence with Scripture, but it is not welcome to those who desire no supernatural interference of God with the machinery of this world.

This is hidden from them, says the apostle; really hidden, so that they may be sincere in it, and yet by the subtlety of their own wills, which so often deceive the keenest. The dependence of the heavens of old upon the word of God, how far is this to be admitted? The earth “subsisting out of water and in water” presents itself as readily in accordance with the fate of that old world overflowed with water. Did it, in fact, perish? or is there some partial flood or a tradition of many different ones that has been mistaken for this? Are there not races that came through it, after all? Are there not races that have no such tradition? Raise a question here, and it is enough. A question, as against Scripture, is always available.

We will believe it, if we must, but we must show our readiness, at least, not to believe, if another theory may better approve itself. Let the record of the past be out of the way, and what need we fear as to any prophecy of a fiery judgment which these invalidated memoirs of an old time have preserved for us? It is by the same Word, and no other, that the heavens that are now and the earth have been stored up, reserved for fire against that which has its character as a day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men. A moral character, as we see, attaches to these things, and will surely loose the tongues of immoral men against them. Yet conscience prophesies too of a judgment to come, a testimony which it costs men much to be able to silence; while the world, as we look at it, spite of all reforms and all outward embellishments of it, is not such that one can readily even believe in a holy God going on with it forever. An anger that vents itself in the destruction of the very material scene which everywhere bears witness of the evil that has defiled it, is, after all, not without its approval in the heart that knows God. 2. But what about this long waiting time, which, as we know, science would enormously protract, in which God has been going on with such a world as this? The apostle has a word to say about this. “Let this not be hidden from you, beloved,” he says, “that one day, with the Lord, is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.” In the presence of God’s eternity we must not reckon things just as we are prone to do. After all, how can one compare all the length of time that might be granted, and the largest claim that could be made, with that immeasurable eternity which can furnish no proportion whatever to it? But there is another thing. “The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some account slackness.” His slackness is but His longsuffering. He “wills not that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” This is what is in His heart, His desire for men, however little they may respond to it.

Yet that day of the Lord, so slow to come, will yet surely come, and come as a thief, stealing unwelcome upon men who put the thought of it willingly away from them, and thus invite deception. “But the day of the Lord will come,.” “in which the heavens will pass away with a rushing noise, and the elements burning with heat shall be dissolved; the earth also, and the works in it, shall be burned up.” We must not confound this with the coming of the Lord for His saints, nor even with His after-appearing with them, and the judgment which will take place upon the earth when He appears. We have, as we know in the after-revelation, the very interval measured which will be between this judgment of the living and the judgment of the dead before the great white throne; and it is in connection with this last, as Peter also speaks here, that the earth and its works will be burned up.

We must realize the difference, too, between “the day of the Lord” and “the coming of the Lord,” and must not wonder if “the day of the Lord” stretch over 1,000 years or more, if it do not reach on, indeed, to eternity. It is the day when the Lord will be once more manifestly supreme, and all opposition to Him be put down with a strong hand. Thus it may begin from the time of that appearing of the Lord itself, and so in its first beginning come as a thief, surprising the world; while, in the course of it further, the earth itself is subjected to His power and things are put into that condition, ready for the coming eternity which the reign of Christ as Man over the earth is ordained to bring about. Every enemy is to be put down, and death itself and Hades cast into the lake of fire; and then, at last, with no enemy or evil occurrent, “the day of the Lord” shall be peace, and nothing else but peace. Christ as “the Father of eternity” shall introduce the reign of peace forever. 3. We come now to the fulfilment of that promise for which we wait. If we are looking for things to be in this way dissolved, “what manner of persons ought we to be, in holy behaviour and godliness,” waiting for and even hastening, with desire, the coming of that day of God when all this shall take place! Beyond it, according to His promise (we can have no evidence of it except that sure and blessed promise, that Word which we must learn to trust here or we shall be beggared forever), there remains for us the cheer of new heavens and the new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. This is manifestly a reference to Isaiah’s word: “Behold, I create new heavens and a new earth, and the former things shall not be remembered nor come into mind.” It is but a glance, for the prophets of the Old Testament, apart from this, never seem to go beyond that kingdom which we, indeed, have learned to call “millennial,” as having its limits defined for us in this way. For Israel, there was no such necessary limitation; there was a bright scene before them upon which their eyes should rest, assured that whatever might be beyond could only be additional blessing; and the prophet here goes on immediately to speak of God’s creating “Jerusalem a rejoicing and her people a joy,” in terms which very plainly imply the presence of sin, and therefore not an earth upon which dwelleth righteousness, not characterized by that.

But we must not on that account lose sight of the distinct character of that which the apostle here, with divine insight, brings forward as what was to be really final -an absolutely “new heavens and new earth.” We have one more reference to it in Isaiah, and that is where the Lord promises that as the new heavens and the new earth which He will make shall remain before Him, so Israel’s seed and their name shall remain. This is naturally taken by many to imply that therefore the new earth itself only speaks here of a temporary, that is, of the millennial condition. If so, it is plainly contrary to what Peter gives us of it here, for it is plain that the dissolution of the heavens and earth that are now is in order to the bringing in of a perfect condition which is to follow it. The picture that we have in the book of Revelation is in complete accordance with this. We have only the alternative, therefore, that this is an absolute promise of God that not only the blessed of Him in Israel shall remain amongst those blessed forever (which, of course, will be true), but that their very seed and name would remain. Here then, of course, is the assertion that Israel has not merely a temporary place as a special people of His upon the earth, but that it will have such a place forever. But this will involve a difficulty for many. It has often been dwelt upon that when, in the new earth, “the tabernacle of God shall be with men and He will dwell with them,” nations shall have disappeared, with all the distinctions incident to this. It is now henceforth only God and men. Can we, however, press this so far? Exactly the same thing has been thought with regard to the company of the redeemed in heaven, as we know. It has been thought and contended that they are all one company.

Spite of the distinctions that we see in such a passage as that in the twelfth of Hebrews, where “the spirits of just men made perfect” (clearly by resurrection) are distinguished from “the assembly of the first-born ones whose names are written in heaven,” it is so generally considered that the Church, which is Christ’s body, is that which has continued through all generations, and which embraces in it all that have ever believed from the beginning, that to speak of any such distinction as is implied here has been thought unwarrantable. Yet very many now have learned to think otherwise, and the passage itself which speaks of “the assembly of first-born ones” must necessarily imply some after-born, who are, therefore, not of this assembly.

It may be said, perhaps, that these are millennial saints. Even so, there is a distinction admitted amongst the redeemed. But it may be questioned whether the first-born are that in time, or in place, rather. Israel has been, as we know, God’s first-born upon the earth, and these “first-born ones registered in heaven” are plainly in opposition to the “first-born ones written upon earth.” When God says of Christ even, prophetically, “I will make Him My first-born, higher than the kings of the earth,” it is plainly prerogative and dignity that are in question, rather than time. Again, among the angels, although they are in this passage in Hebrews spoken of as “the universal gathering,” yet we are accustomed to recognize distinctions -authorities, principalities and powers, whatever may be implied in these. The distinction between earthly and heavenly saints must abide.

If there be a new earth for those upon earth, the heavenly saints have not their portion there. Thus there is no antecedent argument against Israel’s name remaining forever in connection with the new earth.

The redeemed will be all redeemed. The children of God will all be children; but if it please God that all that He has wrought in Israel should be preserved in this way, as a memorial forever, what is there to stumble any in such a thing? In any case, if the “new heavens and the new earth” mean just what the apostle is speaking of here, then it is positively declared by the prophet that Israel’s seed and name shall remain as long as these do. We have no reason whatever to say that the new heavens and the new earth are millennial, simply. To what other promise can Peter refer here than that in Isaiah? There is no other; and the apostle gives this distinctly, not as a new revelation, but as the fulfilment of God’s word of old.

Thus we have no alternative, surely, but to take it as it stands. Distance on the part of any from God will indeed be over.

Those words of revelation, “The tabernacle of God shall be with men, and He will dwell with them,” are assurance that now, what has always been in God’s heart, what we have seen as revealed in Christ Himself among men,Immanuel, -will be at last fully effectuated. There will be no distance anywhere; but that does not imply that there will be no differences, which, if it be maintained, must be insisted on in the fullest manner -no difference between the Church and Old Testament saints; no difference between the heavenly saints and the earthly; and this would naturally end in what is the thought of many, that the new earth will be the final abode of all these, and that the New Jerusalem itself, therefore, must lose finally its distinctly heavenly character. Scripture surely does not lead to this, nor justify it. The blessing of all will be perfect, but there will be distinct circles of blessing, none the less. Just a word as to the expression itself, “new heavens and a new earth.” The heavens here are simply the heavens of the earth itself, that is to say, all that is connected with the firmament of the second day. The heavens have too manifestly to do with the earth to be omitted in any description of the final change. The heavens rule the earth, and thus are naturally changed in order to the new condition of things upon it. As we find them connected in the creative account in Genesis, so we find them connected again here at the close. The new earth, let us remember, is new in the same sense that the man in Christ is a new man -not a new individual. It is the same person who was the sinner and is now the saint, but there is a new condition altogether.

The millennium, as we have seen in Titus, is the regeneration of the earth; but that is not the prelude to its mere destruction. On the contrary, it is the first step towards abiding blessing and the change of the heavens and the earth; for the coming in of that which is new is as the change upon the body for the saint, when the body itself may be dissolved and everything seem to pass away, the very elements of it dispersed in every direction; and yet there is a resurrection of the dead. The great condition of blessing is announced. Righteousness must be the basis of all, and abiding righteousness upon the new earth means abiding blessing.* Whose heart that has known what it is to “hunger and thirst after righteousness” but must look with expectation for that time? “Wherefore,” says the apostle, “seeing that ye wait for these things, be diligent to be found of Him in peace, without spot and blameless.” How unsuitable for the looking for this condition of perfect righteousness would be the least laxity with regard to it now!
4. But the apostle closes still with the word of warning. We are to account, as he reminds us again, that the longsuffering of the Lord is salvation. That is His meaning in it. It is not tolerance of evil in any wise, and we must not use it as an argument for any tolerance on our part of what is contrary to Him. The fruit of this longsuffering we are, every one of us: therefore we may well rejoice in it. And Peter has here a tender reference to that beloved brother, Paul, to whom the gospel of salvation was in an eminent way committed. It is the only passage, perhaps, in the New Testament in which we find the commendation of one inspired apostle by another.

How suited here, where there had been, as we know, for a moment an apparent breach, which men have worked, after their manner, into a strife between two contradictory systems -Christian both, and which had finally, by some way of compromise, to be brought together and welded into one. Peter’s words here are surely intended in divine wisdom to meet any such thought, and the very letter to the Hebrews is what Peter refers to in this case. “According to the wisdom given unto him,” he says, he “hath written unto you.” Yet here, above all, were, as we know, some of those things hard to be understood which would be found especially by Jews, more or less, in all his epistles. That does not, in Peter’s eyes, evidently, diminish the wisdom of them. There are those who wrest them to their own destruction, but they have to wrest them in order to this, and those who do so are the untaught and ill established -the people who, therefore, have not bent their hearts really to the establishing truth, and have not submitted their souls to the discipline of it. Destruction could not come otherwise to any from the blessed Scriptures, the witnesses of the fulness of God’s love for men; yet even those truly His might need the admonition. God works in this way, by His admonitions; and the apostle bids them, knowing these things before, to beware lest, being carried away with the error of the wicked, they fall from their own steadfastness.

He returns in his last words here, to that with which he had begun the epistle. If they would not fall or be carried away, they must “grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.” They must learn more and more the grace expressed in Christ; for growth in grace is surely, on the other side of it, but growth in the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour.

In that knowledge he has told us at the beginning, all things are found that pertain to life and godliness. “To Him,” therefore, “be glory, both now and forever.”* \