Peter Dispels Many Popular Notions about Christ's Return -- a study of 2 Peter 3
- mww
- 1 day ago
- 19 min read
The Second Coming is a sober reality for Christians and non-Christians alike.
Bible Study Ideas and Commentary for 2 Peter 3
At the end of 2 Peter, Peter comes full circle with his encouragement to believers to make their churches strong and his warning to avoid false teachers. His topic, Christ's Return, is one of those subjects that false teachers manipulate but that Peter knows is absolutely foundational to healthy Christianity. Jesus is coming back, and that affects everything.
But the day of the Lord will come like a thief (3:10)
This week's passage covers a lot of ground, so I had a lot of different ideas for how you might get your group talking. Certainly, you only need to use one (at most two); maybe one of these will help you craft the perfect topic for your unique group!
Memorial Day Weekend
We have an upcoming Fourth of July holiday to celebrate our freedoms as American. And we have Veteran's Day to celebrate our veterans. Memorial Day is different -- it's designed to remind us that our freedoms came at a terrible price.
Of course, in our morning service, I will point that toward the price Jesus paid for our eternal freedom from sin! But in this week's Bible study passage, I think a different connection might work.
In what way does death add a sense of urgency to things?
In the case of Memorial Day, the idea is for us to better appreciate the things they died for (the things too many of us take for granted) and to be willing to continue to fight for the preservation of those freedoms for ourselves and our posterity. I can't say any of this better than Lincoln did at Gettysburg: "It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced."
Peter feels this urgency in two ways --
He knows he is soon to die; it's possible that Paul has recently died. With everything he has left, he wants to fulfill his promise he gave to care of Jesus' people.
He knows that Jesus is coming back one day, and then everybody's earthly life will come to an end. Nobody knows how much time we have left, so every moment matters.
What urgency do you feel knowing your time on earth is finite and/or knowing that Jesus will come back to judge every person?
Getting Ready for Vacation
A more upbeat topic would be to talk about vacations. (It could be that a lot of your people are going to be on vacation this week!) How do you prepare for a vacation?
Very few people take truly unplanned vacations. Even the most "spontaneous" vacations are taken to a familiar place or a place with contacts.
Are you as "good" at preparing for life as you are for a vacation? Peter would certainly want you to be just as intentional about the way you plan for your next week not on vacation.
Will This Day Never End?
I visited a friend in the hospital, and she was miserable -- not because of pain so much but because they were keeping her in the hospital for another week, and she was antsy and bored and wanted to go home.
What is the "longest day" for you? Is it when you're experiencing something difficult, like a stay in the hospital or dealing with an illness? Or maybe it's the opposite -- like waiting for a vacation (or a birthday)!
Sometimes days seem to crawl, and sometimes they fly. How does that work out in your life?
In this week's passage, Peter reminds us that God created time -- He is "outside of time" -- which means He is not affected by our sense of the passage of time. He is with us in our joy, our sorrow, our impatience, our surprise, in a way that we will never understand. In this week's passage, Peter reminds us of the ultimate "This too shall pass": one day time itself will end, and God will bring His people into eternity to be with Him.
The Longest 60 Seconds
A variation of this would be to have all of your group members try to guess how long a minute is. You would have a stopwatch, and you would ask your group to do something like "close your eyes, count to a minute, and then raise your hand" -- whoever gets it closest "wins". (The social scientist in me wants to make one person put on an ice pack and another to hold a cactus and another to hold something heavy and see if discomfort speeds up or slows down the experience of time. But that's probably just me.)
Delaying the Inevitable
Another variation of this would be to ask about something your group members tried to put off as long as possible. We've all done it. You can only put things off for so long. Do things go better or worse when you put them off? Peter would suggest that if you put some things off for too long (i.e., salvation), you might lose your chance to do it at all.
"If You Were in Charge of the World's Clock?"
I can't take credit for this one -- it's far too clever for me. My Serendipity Bible has this marvelous question: "If you were in charge of the worlds clock, would you speed up or slow down time?" To me, that question isn't really about the answer but about the reasons why. That could be a fun discussion!
Wrapping Up 1/2 Peter
We have come to our last lesson in 1 and 2 Peter! And Peter also wraps things up in the most ultimate sense.
Peter's letters have followed two parallel tracks: (1) build yourselves up into strong, healthy, loving churches; (2) watch out for and defend yourselves against false teachers. Those two things are related, and they reinforce one another.
One of the false teachings that has bothered Peter the most is the idea that Jesus isn't really coming back. "If Jesus were coming back, why hasn't He come back yet? Huh? HUH?" To Peter, this false teaching is devastating to the Christian faith.
First, it would make Jesus a liar. Just read Matthew 24. When the disciples ask Jesus about His return, the first thing He says is, ""Watch out that no one deceives you"! But later, He says, "Now concerning that day and hour no one knows—neither the angels of heaven nor the Son —except the Father alone." (24:36) Peter was there; Jesus told Peter that He was coming back ... one day.
Second, it would remove the teeth from the gospel message. Jesus' return is associated with God's judgment on sin at the end of human history (again, just read Matthew 24). If Jesus is not returning, then God is not finally judging sin (which is indeed something these false teachers taught). And if there is no judgment, then what are we being saved from? And if salvation is universal (which is also something these false teachers taught), then that also makes Jesus a liar, Jesus who said that not everybody would be saved but only those who come to Him for salvation (see Matthew 7 and John 6)!
So, to Peter, the Second Coming is foundational to the Christian faith. And he ends his letter with a reminder and an encouragement about it.
This Week's Big Idea: Can You Lose Your Salvation?
We have taught many times, and I have been as clear about this as possible, that a Christian cannot lose his/her salvation.
The text I point to for this is John 10:
11 I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. 12 The hired hand, since he is not the shepherd and doesn’t own the sheep, leaves them and runs away when he sees a wolf coming. The wolf then snatches and scatters them.
10:27 My sheep hear my voice, I know them, and they follow me. 28 I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand. 29 My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all. No one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.
And that's just good theology. If our salvation begins and ends with God, who are we to think we can overcome God? We did not work to earn our salvation; we cannot "work" to lose our salvation.
But then there are verses like in this week's passage:
Therefore, dear friends, since you know this in advance, be on your guard, so that you are not led away by the error of lawless people and fall from your own stable position. (2 Peter 3:17)
Some Bible readers believe Peter is warning that you can lose your salvation if you're not careful.
We studied Hebrews back in 2014, and I just realized that I have not gotten those old lessons online yet, so that's a bummer for me. Hebrews is famous for its "warning passages" (in lieu of my un-posted articles, see this Gospel Coalition article - Warning Passages Ahead) that some people believe teach you can lose your salvation. I argued that if you read it closely, you'll see lots of conditionals -- "If this could happen, then this would happen." None of those conditions will be met for a Christian, but they remind us of the urgency of "being" a Christian.
There's a little of that in Peter's letter, but there's more of a second thing that's going on: a mixed audience. Both Peter and the author of Hebrews knew they were writing to a mixed audience -- which included people who believed they were Christian but were not. Falling away from the faith under persecution, falling away after false teachers -- those were evidences that a person was not a true Christian in the first place.
But here's what I think Peter is primarily saying: the word for "stable position" is just "firmness". It does not simply refer to salvation. Remember what Peter said at the beginning of this letter:
1:8 if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being useless or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
If the worst thing that could happen to a Christian (losing his salvation) can't actually happen, then the second-worst thing would be losing his effectiveness as a Christian. Listening to a false teacher and straying from the true knowledge of Jesus could cause that.
In summary:
A true Christian cannot lose his salvation, but he can lose his effectiveness as a follower of Christ.
A person can falsely believe he is a Christian, and falling away from the true faith (either under persecution or false teaching) is evidence of that falsity.
Bonus Big Idea: When Is the Second Coming?
Boy, there's been a lot of ink spilt on this. I'm to the point in life now where I will just present two passages of Scripture:
Now concerning that day and hour no one knows—neither the angels of heaven nor the Son —except the Father alone. (Matt 24:36)
6 So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, are you restoring the kingdom to Israel at this time?” 7 He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. 8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come on you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” (Acts 1)
Does Jesus need to say this again? It is not for us to know when God is sending Jesus back. It is only for us to continue being Jesus' ambassadors every day that we live being ready for Him to return at any moment.
Okay?
Part 1: Jesus Is Coming Back (2 Peter 3:8-10)
8 Dear friends, don’t overlook this one fact: With the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day. 9 The Lord does not delay his promise, as some understand delay, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish but all to come to repentance. 10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief; on that day the heavens will pass away with a loud noise, the elements will burn and be dissolved, and the earth and the works on it will be disclosed.
Our lesson skips the beginning of the chapter. Peter says a few things I want to highlight:
Verse 2. The words of the apostles (i.e., the New Testament) are on the level of the Old Testament prophets -- not because the apostles are so great but because they faithfully teach what Jesus taught them.
Verse 4. People who say that "the world just keeps spinning" ignore the cataclysms that have happened over the course of human history -- Peter specifically mentions the flood.
Verse 7. God destroyed the world once by flood, and He will never do that again. The next time, He will destroy the world with fire.
Now to this week's passage.
Note: I'm going to push part of verse 10 into the next section.
When you stop and say it out loud, "Jesus hasn't come back yet, therefore I bet He's never coming back" is galactically stupid logic. And yet, that's exactly what these false teachers were saying. What would they say today, after another 2,000 years have passed!
Peter wants Christians to have a different relationship with the passage of time. As time-bound creatures, we cannot help but measure things by duration (more about this at the bottom of the post), and therefore we cannot help but consider things as being "late" or "early" or "right on time" (whatever we think that means). But the passage of time is associated with change, and change is associated with decay (i.e. the Laws of Thermodynamics) (and the Laws of Waking Up in the Morning).
God will never change, and God will never decay. To Peter, this is the most comforting truth. It means that our salvation is always secure.
It also means that we have to stop thinking in terms of God acting "late" or "early". (You remember this line from the Christian-coded Lord of the Rings:
God will send Jesus back when He means to. And that will be the "right" time for it.
Peter quotes Psalm 90, a fascinating Psalm attributed to Moses in which Moses looks at the impermanence of human life and struggles next to the permanence of God's majestic power. Moses concludes that God's permanence means that we can trust His mercy on every generation -- including our great-grandkids and beyond. Again, that's a great comfort, is it not?
Here's a nice little article about this topic if you want to know more:
Peter believes that every day Jesus doesn't return is another day for God's people to spread the gospel and pray for sinners to repent. God is not dallying; He is giving His people more time to work. God is not dallying; therefore we should not dally.
That's a very different perspective on Christ's "delay" than the false teachers would have you.
Note that verse 9 ("not wanting any to perish") is a battleground passage. More about this below.
"The Day of the Lord" refers to Christ's Second Coming, the parousia (coming). If you want your fill of "what people think" about this, Wikipedia is here for you:
Realize that most of what you find online about the parousia of Christ will be completely intertwined with that author's opinion about the "End Times" (Premillennialism, Post-tribulation, etc.), but the New Testament generally just refers to this as an event. Jesus is coming back. Not too many details given or needed.
Peter likens this Coming to a "thief in the night", something we have studied before.
I'll say more about this below.
Peter's point: Jesus is returning to judge all people and destroy the present world with fire. This could be a sticking point for some of your group members; I've talked to plenty of Baptists who believe that the earth is just going to continue on forever, that God will just "drop the New Jerusalem on top of the present Jerusalem" and off we go. Remember that creation itself is corrupted by sin, just like our current bodies are corrupted by sin. Our current bodies cannot live forever; the present earth cannot continue forever. But you know 1 Corinthians 15! God will "remake" us with a new, eternal body (whatever that means), and He will remake the earth in whatever equivalent way.
If God can remake our bodies into something that will never decay, never get cancer, never lose eyesight -- and that is a great comfort for us! -- then God can remake the earth into something without earthquakes, without falling rocks, without droughts -- and that should also give us great comfort!
Aside: Like a Thief in the Night
For reasons that still utterly confound me, some Christians believe that the phrase "like a thief" teaches the doctrine of the Pretribulation Rapture (i.e., Left Behind). Just read what Peter says here -- this day will be the day the earth is destroyed by fire. This is "the last trumpet", not the beginning of some season on earth without Christians.
The Bible has other things to say about the Last Days (plural). But don't use this passage to teach the Pretribulation Rapture.
Bonus Aside: Calvinism vs. Arminianism vs. Universalism
Verse 9 causes all kinds of heartburn for people who are thoroughly devoted to a belief system -- "but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish but all to come to repentance". Some people teach that this means that God is unable to accomplish His will. Some people teach that this means that everyone will be saved. Some people teach that this means that God does not interfere with human will.
A common step here is to distinguish between God's "sovereign will" (decretive will, which is hidden from people), God's "revealed will" (preceptive will, which He has made known to us), and even God's "desires" (dispositional/desiderative will, which is just internal to His character). How far you pursue that often reflects your leaning toward either Calvinism or Arminianism. And I think all of that speculation distracts from Peter's rather obvious meaning.
I want to be as respectful about this as possible, but I believe that this verse is utterly incompatible with the Calvinistic doctrine of double-predestination, that God determined before creation which people would be saved and which would be damned. Calvinists famously believe that not everyone will be saved (and the Bible teaches that, too), so this verse would mean that God has the power to save everybody, the desire to save everybody, but does not save everybody. He somehow freely chooses to act against His own desire (or will), which would run counter to some other important Calvinistic doctrines of God.
Rather, I think we should interpret this verse at face value. God created all humans and loves us all -- He willingly sacrificed His own Son in order to make eternal salvation available to us. But He has also given us the "choice" in the matter (I've never been fully comfortable with that word here, but I'm not sure which word makes more sense). God draws people to Jesus (His "prevenient grace"), and people can choose to submit to or reject that call to salvation. Salvation begins and ends with God, but He gives us the responsibility to participate in that salvation. God doesn't want to send anybody to hell, but He will "respect our choice" to reject His offer to satisfy His wrath against our sin through Jesus. We send ourselves to hell when we say no to God's free and perfect offer of salvation.
Part 2: We Have One Life to Live (2 Peter 3:11-14)
[10 the elements will burn and be dissolved, and the earth and the works on it will be disclosed.]
11 Since all these things are to be dissolved in this way, it is clear what sort of people you should be in holy conduct and godliness 12 as you wait for the day of God and hasten its coming. Because of that day, the heavens will be dissolved with fire and the elements will melt with heat. 13 But based on his promise, we wait for new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness dwells. 14 Therefore, dear friends, while you wait for these things, make every effort to be found without spot or blemish in his sight, at peace.
Let's go back to verse 10 to start. It's actually a very difficult translation from the Greek, meaning something like "the earth and every deed done on it will be laid bare" or "the earth and the works will be stripped bare". The context is the word for "dissolved", and the context for "dissolved" is "burn", so the meaning seems to be related either to "melt away" or "burn up and disintegrate". That makes sense, but what does that have to do with "works"? I think it's exactly what Paul was saying in 1 Corinthians 3:
11 For no one can lay any foundation other than what has been laid down. That foundation is Jesus Christ. 12 If anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay, or straw, 13 each one’s work will become obvious. For the day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire; the fire will test the quality of each one’s work. 14 If anyone’s work that he has built survives, he will receive a reward. 15 If anyone’s work is burned up, he will experience loss, but he himself will be saved—but only as through fire.
Paul is speaking about Christians -- a reminder that our works neither contribute to nor take away from our salvation, but God will still "measure" them. Peter would know that the same thing applies to non-Christians. At the final judgment, when the earth is burned away, there will be nowhere left for any person to hide, and there will be no way for them to hide their deeds. Everything will be revealed. Jesus was a bit more somber about this in Luke 8:
16 No one, after lighting a lamp, covers it with a basket or puts it under a bed, but puts it on a lampstand so that those who come in may see its light. 17 For nothing is concealed that won’t be revealed, and nothing hidden that won’t be made known and brought to light. 18 Therefore take care how you listen. For whoever has, more will be given to him; and whoever does not have, even what he thinks he has will be taken away from him.
To the non-believer, the Return of Christ is the end, the destruction of everything.
But Peter wants his readers to know that to the believer, Jesus' Return is actually a new beginning! God will give us a "new earth" where the true righteousness that Peter has repeatedly told us to live by will "be at home". That is a promise to give us comfort and courage.
Therefore ...
If we want to live in that new heaven and earth where God's righteousness will be all around us (and we do), then let's live that way now, in this life, on this earth.
Peter nowhere suggests that we do this because we're trying to earn our way into the new earth. Rather, as God's people, we should desire to live His way for His glory now in our one life on this earth (which is our one chance to share God's gospel with others). Righteousness for humans means "being right with God", and godliness for humans means "living a life that pleases God"; those are both things Peter has repeatedly told us to prioritize in our own lives.
Aside: The Urgency of Judgment
Jesus talked a lot about His Return (I like to point to Matthew 24 and 25). Jesus' Return means that there is an end-point to history, a deadline for humanity (if you will). Deadlines create a sense of urgency. Peter feels it with his impending death; he wants us to feel it with the inevitability of either our death or Christ's Return (whichever comes first).
This is not to frighten us -- it is to spur us on to the task God has given us. (Well, and also to frighten anyone who isn't a Christian.)
Part 3: Listen to the Bible (2 Peter 3:15-18)
15 Also, regard the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our dear brother Paul has written to you according to the wisdom given to him. 16 He speaks about these things in all his letters. There are some things hard to understand in them. The untaught and unstable will twist them to their own destruction, as they also do with the rest of the Scriptures.
17 Therefore, dear friends, since you know this in advance, be on your guard, so that you are not led away by the error of lawless people and fall from your own stable position. 18 But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity.
This is one of those fabulous little passages that often gets overlooked because it isn't as dramatic as talking about the destruction of the world by fire.
But what Peter says about Paul is profound.
Peter speaks of Paul's letters alongside "the rest of the Scriptures" -- to Peter, that means the Old Testament. Peter is specifically saying that Paul's letters, filled with wisdom that was "given to him" (by God, of course), are on the same level as the Old Testament. This, combined with verse 2 (which set the words of Christ passed on by the apostles on the same level of the Old Testament) is the earliest and clearest statement in favor of a Bible containing both the Old Testament and the New Testament.
(And Peter also says that Paul's letters are heady -- Peter really is one of us!)
Verse 15 clearly says that the people receiving Peter's letter had also read letters from Paul. In 1 Peter, Peter identifies the northern part of Asia Minor as his target; Paul focused on southern and western Asia Minor. So, either Paul's letters had circulated to the churches in the north, or Peter had expanded his audience to include all of Asia Minor. In any case, this suggests that Peter's audience in this letter was Gentile, and I've read a lot of speculation that Paul must have died, which might have sparked Peter to write this second letter to a wider audience. We don't know, and it doesn't change the meaning of anything, but I enjoy speculating on things like that.
Paul had warned his churches that false teachers would follow him. Peter wanted to throw whatever credibility he had behind Paul in support of him. I appreciate that.
One of my "Big Ideas" above was the simple argument that Christians cannot lose their salvation, and Peter does not suggest otherwise here. However, just as Christians can grow, they can also fall. It will not lead to their damnation, but it will lead to their lives being fruitless. (I also mentioned that Peter's audience certainly included non-Christians, and they should be warned to evaluate the fruit of their lives.)
And that's the simple question for us: are we going to grow, or are we going to fall? There is no "neutral" in the Christian life.
Here, Peter specifically mentions growing in our knowledge of Christ so we can be on our guard against false teachers who would lead us astray. But in the rest of his letters, he has mentioned plenty of other things.
What specific steps are you going to take this week to grow in your faith? And what can your Bible study group do to help you?
Closing Thoughts: Humanity's Obsession with Time
People around the world and throughout history have been obsessed with measuring time.
About a month ago, I read about a new clock that somehow keeps more accurate time (whatever that means):
Being able to measure the passage of time in our interconnected world is very important for commerce, communication, and travel.
But our obsession with time is obviously much more than utilitarian -- as finite creatures, we know that our time is limited, and so we measure it. And we obsess over "making the most of it" (whatever that means). And we share "timesavers" and "life hacks". And some people are even looking for ways to "slow down their biological clock".
Because we live in time, we have no choice but to obsess over time, I guess.
As Christians, we are to realize that time itself is a created thing. God created it to make us able to exist (I cannot comprehend existence apart from the passage time). But because God created it, God has control over it. We count our days, but we can also trust the God who has numbered our days and sits above them. God does not age, does not change. That should give us comfort.
As far as eternity/heaven goes, I have no idea what to say. As I just said, I don't know what existence means apart from the passage of time. Does heaven mean that we will exist for infinite time? Or does it mean that time itself will somehow be different? I don't know. I just know that heaven is where Jesus is, and that's all that matters.