Jesus Suffers Again in the 2nd Coming Verse
Second Peter: The Delay of Jesus' Return & the Crunch of Patience
Peter's Last--and Lasting--Words
Second Peter is a piddling book with a whole lot of passion. It feels intense, but that'south to be expected when the apostolic colonnade of the early church pens his last words. Peter knows he's about to die, and then he carefully crafts this farewell spoken language to the network of churches in Asia Pocket-sized (2 Pet. 1:12-15). He wants his last exhortations and warnings to be recorded and preserved in club to serve as a memorial of his teaching for futurity generations, which includes our generation today. And I think y'all'll discover that his message is as timely today as it was so.
What'due south 2 Peter All About?
In affiliate one, Peter challenges believers to never cease growing in godliness and Christ-similar qualities. Then, in capacity ii and three, he pivots towards the corrupt teachers who were denying the render of Jesus and final judgment in lodge to justify their immoral behavior. Their combined skepticism of Jesus' return with their honey of sin without consequences was all likewise convenient. They could decline biblical authority, get rich quick past teaching a false message of Christian "liberty," and take lots of casual sex all without fear of accountability or judgment. It was a classic "have your cake and eat it too" scenario.
Peter wasn't having any of information technology. He condemns them in chapter two, reminding his readers of God's sure judgment on wickedness. To make his case he follows a rabbinic formula of proof, which moves from a pocket-size to a major premise. Information technology goes similar this: if A is true, how much more then is B truthful also. Using that formula, he pulls from notorious events in biblical history to knock it out of the park. If (A) God did not spare the fallen angels, the ancient civilisation in Noah'due south day, or Sodom and Gomorrah (ii Pet. 2:4-8), then (B) how much more so will he bring certain judgment on false teachers who merits to be Christians only decline the truth (2 Pet. ix-10)? Moreover, their knowledge of the gospel will actually brand them more culpable on the concluding day of judgment (which, past the way, is coming!). Wow. Let's but say, Peter: 1, False Teachers: 0.
Just Peter doesn't stop there. The allegation that the delay of Jesus disapproves the expectation of his return demands a response. Yes. The simulated teachers needed to be silenced, merely the young churches also needed to be shepherded through the delay. After all, they were living through the first wave of organized persecution against Christians during the reign of Nero, a wicked Roman emperor. The question initially raised by the corrupt leaders would have get inescapable in the minds of these persecuted Christians. Why did Jesus delay when such palpable evil was ruling the day?
This very existent, felt question isn't limited to first-century believers. Just look at the globe around you. Evil is rampant. There's violence and mass shootings and terror. There's brokenness and pain and suffering. The innocent are oppressed while the wicked prosper. High ascension moguls get rich while the assaulted are shunned. We tin can't help but wrestle with the same question. What's taking Jesus so long to return and right all wrongs?
The Fundamental Crisis: What's Taking Jesus SO Long?
Second Peter 3 actually contains the most explicit treatment of the delay of the parousia (a Greek word that means the second coming of Jesus at the end of human history) in the unabridged New Testament, so information technology'southward particularly important if you're trying to make sense of this expect.
Peter begins by reminding his readers how the Scriptures warned in that location would exist scoffers in the last days who depart from truth and follow sinful desires. They would question the promise of God's render, citing that always since the patriarchs died, all things take continued only as they were from the beginning. They purposefully overlook the fact that God had intervened earlier, both in the account of cosmos and the overflowing. God would surely intervene over again on a final day of reckoning for the unrighteous and rescue for the righteous (2 Pet. 3:i-seven). Peter and then moves to his central statement on how to understand the filibuster of the parousia in verses 8-9:
"But do not overlook this ane fact, beloved, that with the Lord ane day is as a thousand years, and a m years as i day. The Lord is not slow to fulfill his hope as some count slowness, simply is patient toward you lot, non wishing that any should perish, just that all should achieve repentance."
2 Peter 3:8-9
Hit Pause!
At this point, we demand to intermission because there's differing schools of thought on how to understand Peter's logic in poesy viii ("i day is as a thousand years"). Without wearisome you, I'll briefly share two prevailing views in order to reject both for a more balanced, biblical culling, which I think better helps u.s. to empathise the significant of the delay. (Notation: I'chiliad post-obit Richard Bauckham's excellent work done on 2 Peter hither.)
One school says you lot have to translate the verse in light of parallels in gimmicky Jewish and Christian literature, following a chronological formulation where a "day" means a thousand years in man terms. Interpreted this way, verse eight is speaking to chronological data (the mean solar day of judgment volition last a thousand years), not to the filibuster of Jesus' return.
But this doesn't work in lite of the context of 2 Peter 3. The whole chapter is built around refuting scoffers who deny the Lord's coming, and then why would Peter plow aside from his central statement to give one line of chronological data about how long the solar day of judgment would last? It simply doesn't add upward.
The second school acknowledges that verse viii is indeed Peter'south answer to the trouble of the delay raised by the scoffers in verses one-7, but they hold that his use of Psalm xc:four is a novel idea produced in an ad hoc kind of way to meet the urgent issue raised by the false teachers. They don't understand Peter to exist utilizing any resources from contemporary Jewish or Christian literature.
I likewise observe this highly unlikely. In the Apocalypse of Baruch, a contemporary of Peter reflects on Psalm 90:4, contrasting God's eternal existence with man'southward brief bridge of life. Conspicuously, there's Jewish precedence for a reading of Psalm 90:4 in its original sense during Peter'due south day. It's difficult to believe that Peter, writing as a thoroughly Jewish Christian, was unaware of this material while simultaneously using Psalm 90:4 in the same style. Information technology doesn't wing.
That said, how should we understand Peter'southward argument in verses 8-9?
Hit Play Again—What's Taking Jesus SO Long?
We should read these verses according to their genre (apocalyptic eschatology), affectionate that Peter is a Jewish Christian who has been shaped by apocalyptic visionaries throughout the centuries. He would have been intimately familiar with writers such every bit Habakkuk or Daniel or Baruch, men who knew what it was to cry out in ache, "How long O Lord," while maintaining trust in God'south sovereign purposes, even equally he delayed. He would take learned from their fierce religion in the confront of evil to trust that God's timetable was non his own and that God's delay was part and packet of the plan.
This helps us come across how Peter, when confronted with the filibuster of Jesus' return, does not hastily contrive arguments in hopes of calming fears for a moment. Rather, he brilliantly enters into a long line of apocalyptic tradition saturated with eschatological delay to form arguments regarding the parousia that were already familiar in his readers' minds. Through this technique, he is able to aid them (and u.s.a.!) understand how the delay holds great meaning within it. Cheque out his two points:
One: God's timetable is different than ours (poetry eight).
Ah. This 1's difficult to grasp in the confront of all the evil that we encounter, yet apocalyptic writers were quick to bespeak out that God operates on a different eschatological clock than nosotros do. His eternal, everlasting perception of time frees him from human concerns. Our human expectation of the "situation" every bit we come across it is bound by our own brief being and our desire to experience full redemption. We're impatient to run into our cleaved lives fully restored, then we weep out with the martyrs of Revelation 6, "How long O Lord?!"
Peter reminds us that "the eternal God is costless from that particular impatience" (The Delay of the Parousia, Richard Bauckham). He's not bound past a desire for personal redemption or limited by human perspective. Thus, what seems and then long to united states of america, might non be equally meaning when viewed from the perspective of the eternal God who surveys and rules over all of human history.
Ii: God is patient, wanting all to come to repentance (verse nine).
Lest nosotros think God works according to his own timetable without any sense of the urgency with which evil and suffering confront us, Peter gives his 2d argument taken from Jewish apocalyptic writing—God delays not considering he is slow, simply because he is patient toward sinners, giving everyone time for repentance. We see this in God'southward description of himself from Exodus 34:vi-7, "…The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, ho-hum to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast beloved for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, merely who will past no means articulate the guilty… ."
This is equally true equally ever when it comes to the parousia. Though nosotros may long for Jesus' render and the defeat of all evil, God has allowed these last days to continue so that more people can turn towards him in faith. The delay isn't a hiccup in his programme; information technology's a function of his plan, which makes him kind, not cruel. Jesus volition indeed return to judge the living and the expressionless, but as long every bit the parousia is delayed, in that location's still fourth dimension for people to repent and trust in Jesus. This truth should actually fuel our patience and passion as nosotros await our Lord's return.
And then How Exercise We Live Right NOW?
With patience and purpose! Peter says we're to be characterized past holiness and godliness every bit we wait for and hasten the coming of the day of God (two Pet. iii:11-12). Like the apocalyptic visionaries of quondam, nosotros're chosen to patiently trust in the perfect purposes of God. Simply this text too suggests that Christian living actually has an effect on God'south timetable (we can "hasten" the coming of the Lord) as we live out the new covenant realities.
That'south pretty profound.
As followers of Jesus who believe that the eschatological promises have broken into the present through the work of Jesus and the outpouring of the Spirit, we don't wait idly for Jesus' return, nor do we live like the corrupt teachers who saw Jesus' delay as an opportunity to indulge the mankind. Rather, like Peter, we live as new, transformed humans who accept advantage of the divine delay to join in God'southward redemptive purposes. Nosotros live out our days bearing witness to Jesus, standing his mission, fighting back the powers of darkness, and hastening the twenty-four hour period when those purposes will exist fully accomplished.
So yes, we wait. But we await patiently, knowing that God is orchestrating all of man history towards his glorious end. And we wait purposely, joining in God's redemptive mission to make disciples of all people.
Source: https://bibleproject.com/blog/2-peter-delay-jesus-return-crisis-of-patience/
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