Reserved for Judgment

Welcome

Introduction

This is now the second letter that I am writing to you, beloved. In both of them I am stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder, that you should remember the predictions of the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior through your apostles,

So Peter has just come out of chapter 2, which, you will remember, was where Peter was absolutely hammering the false teachers. He is calling them out for their sinful and blasphemous behaviour and lifestyles, he is comparing them to dogs and pigs, even calling them “accursed children!” Imagine Peter: this elderly, bearded minister—red in the face, steam pouring out of his ears, fists clenched ready to slam down on an unfortunate table somewhere. And for good reason: after all, the church of Jesus Christ is under threat!

So now it’s as though he’s caught himself. He’s taking a deep breath, collecting himself, and then he begins again with “As I was saying before my angry outburst, this is the second letter I am writing to you.”

Of course, this wasn’t Peter suddenly losing control of himself and then calming himself—after all, this was a letter that he had time to compose and think about what he wanted to say. But during this time, because not everyone could read, most people would hear letters like this being read out loud. So this is like a rhetorical device that reminds people, Okay, back to my main point.

You may see some similarities between chapter 3:1-2 and chapter 1:16-21. If you look back at chapter 1, he brings up the authority of the Old Testament prophets as well as the Twelve Apostles.

In two verses here, he summarizes what he said in 6 verses earlier. Basically, he’s reminding the church, “As I was saying, these are the people who are reliable and trustworthy. Listen to these people because they are telling the truth.”

That’s important to bring up, because throughout this chapter, we will see that the false teachers are questioning whether the prophets and the apostles are really telling the truth. They are seeding doubt: “Can we really trust what they said?”

The False Teachers’ Perspective

Before we dismiss the false teachers, we should at least acknowledge that they were asking a legitimate question.

Imagine if I told you I would be sending you an gift “soon”, and then you wait a few days, a week, a month, a year, you would be right to question “Hey, are you really going to send that gift soon?” In today’s world, when we email customer service with a question, we expect a next-day reply, if not a same-day reply. If we don’t, we’re going to file a complaint.

And here is Jesus, who spent his earthly ministry telling people to “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!” By the time Peter is writing, it’s been over 40 years, and we don’t see anything! The problem is that we don’t have a manager that we can complain to because, well, Jesus is God. If He is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, then surely he is also the “Manager of Managers”, right?

So anyway, Peter’s false teachers are technically asking a legitimate question: why hasn’t Jesus come back yet? After all, he has talked so much about how soon it was going to come.

Well, one logical explanation is that God has been lying. God’s Word through the prophets and the apostles is not true after all. Jesus isn’t going to come back. There won’t be a final judgment. So go therefore and live your own life! Do whatever you want and sin as much as you like!

As you can expect, that’s not how the story goes. But let’s recognise that this mindset is still around to this day. The first century Christians had to deal with Jesus being “delayed” for 40 years. Today, Jesus has been delayed for 2000 years. The question is even more pressing now than it was back then: when, if ever, is Jesus going to come back? If we’re honest, don’t we kind of live our lives without the expectation that Jesus will return? We talk about the future like it’s a given. We make five-year-plans or even ten-year-plans as though the next ten years are assured. We plan for our future, our children, our retirement more than we plan for the return of Jesus Christ. In short, I wonder if the way we live is not shaped enough by the expectation that Jesus will return. And with that, I wonder if we are more similar to Peter’s false teachers than we like to admit.

So to counter this mindset, Peter responds to the false teachers on several levels. We’ll look at one dimension of that response today, which is him dealing with their accusation that God’s Word through the Old Testament prophets and the apostles is false. Against that accusation, Peter defends that God’s Word stands true.

The Last Days

Before we get get there though, there’s a phrase in here that we read carefully: “the last days.” Pop culture today has taught us to think of “the last days” as a future event. It’s “the end of time” or "the end of the world” when natural disasters will erupt all over the world and human civilization will be destroyed. That’s not it.

Let’s look at the text. Peter apears to be talking about some future period. He says, “scoffers will come in the last days” and “they will say.” Future tense.

But read verse 5: “For they deliberately overlook this fact.” This is in the present tense. Peter is not talking about a distant future or distant false teachers and scoffers. Peter is quoting the Old Testament prophets from several hundred years before him. They were looking ahead to the arrival of the promised Messiah and prophesying about what would happen then. In Peter’s day, the Messiah has already come—Jesus Christ. And so also the scoffers have come. The first century church is already under attack.

So “the last days” does not refer to “the end of the world” as pop culture would have us believe. It is not a purely future event at the end of time.

According to the biblical writers, “The Last Days” simply means the time period between the first and second comings of Jesus Christ. It is the in-between period between Jesus’ resurrection and his return. Which means, Peter was living in the Last Days just as we are also living in the Last Days. We are all living at a point after Jesus’ first coming and before his second coming.

That being said, let’s return to Peter’s response.

Peter’s Response

So the false teachers have been claiming that God’s Word about Jesus’ return and the final judgment is all empty and meaningless talk. Ironically, Peter points out that they are proving God’s Word to be true.

The prophets and the apostles have always been prophesying that “scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires”. Now they have appeared.

Furthermore, their scoffing is a result of their sinful desires. I said earlier that the false teachers may be asking legitimate questions, but they are not sincere about finding out the truth. In the last few lessons, we’ve been saying that the problem with the false teachers wasn’t just the false doctrine they were teaching, but it was that they were inventing a false doctrine to justify their ungodly, greedy lifestyles. They wanted to look spiritual and holy while also continuing with their sinful lifestyles. If the truth about Jesus didn’t allow them to do that, they would invent their own system of doctrine.

So in asking these questions and casting doubt on Jesus’ return, the false teachers may sound intellectual and sophisticated. But actually, they are just questioning the parts of Christian truth that prevent them from living the sinful lifestyle that they want. If we can summarize the two halves of the Christian faith, they like the part where Jesus has set us free from the requirements of the law, but they don’t like the part where they are supposed to remain faithful to God’s will until Jesus returns. Both are essential parts of the Christian story, but the false teachers accepted only the first part wholeheartedly while questioning the second part.

Unfortunately, this is not uncommon today either. Many Christians today like the part where Christ loves us unconditionally and saves us from sin and death, but don’t like the other half about dying to the flesh and putting on the rightousness of Christ.

Okay, let’s move along to what the false teachers are claiming.

The False Teachers’ Assertion

For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.”

There are two possible meanings for “the fathers”. Some think that this refers to the first generation of Christians who were adults when Jesus was crucified and resurrected. Almost 40 years have passed, and they would have had children who are now grown up to be the second generation of Christians, and the first generation might have already died. While this would make chronological sense, the New Testament normally uses this phrase to mean the Old Testament believers. The phrase does not mean the biological parents of the second generation of Christians, but to the spiritual parents of the Christians—the Jews.

So what the false teachers are asserting is that “The Old Testament believers have lived and died for a thousand years, and everything is still the same from the beginning of creation! People live their lives, they are born, get married, work, have kids, and die—exactly as things have been for generations! What exactly has Jesus changed?” Non-believers today could very well say the same thing—people still come and go doing their own thing, the sun still rises in the morning and sets in the evening, and many non-Christians get on just fine in life. There are still many successful people in the world who are sinners at heart—what exactly did Jesus change?

The false teachers believe that nothing has changed because God doesn’t care about what happens on earth. The world is a closed system that God created at the beginning and then left alone to run itself. He doesn’t care what humans do; he doesn’t care about justice and injustice, because if he really did care, he would have done something already!

Peter’s Rebuttal

But Peter is not convinced, and he tells his church that they shouldn’t be convinced either. The false teachers’ assertion is ultimately false. Okay, why?

5 For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God, 6 and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished. 7 But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.

God is not absent or far away from his creation. God does care about what happens on earth. He does care about morality and justice and truth. And Scripture records the story of God’s direct and fundamental involvement in the world.

Just like in chapter 2, Peter chooses three biblical examples to show how God's involvement in the world. Look out for Peter emphasises God’s Word—the very same word that the false teachers are doubting is true.

Example 1: Creation

The heavens existed long ago. The earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God. We can all remember the famous first words of God in Genesis 1:3: “Let there be light,” and there was light. And in the first six days of creation, God speaks his Word, and the universe springs into existence. John 1:1-3 says that God created all things through his Word, and nothing was made without the Word. In other words, the very fact that anything exists hangs on the truth of the Word of God. If God had not spoken, we would not be here; nothing would be here!

So yes, the world runs by many natural laws that do not change from day to day. The sun will rise in the east and set in the west. What comes up will still come down thanks to gravity. Light will still travel at 300 million meters per second.

The false teachers would look at this consistency and say “See? The world can run on its own; it doesn’t need a God to come and interfere!” Okay, but who set the world running in the first place? And who ensures that it stays running the same as it has always been?

The conclusion: At God’s Word, the universe came into being. By God’s Word the universe is sustained. Remove God from the equation, and all creation would collapse. Which actually brings us to the second example.

Example 2: The Flood

This is the reference to Noah and the Flood. While the example of creation shows how God’s Word brings order and stability, this second example shows how the same Word of God can and does affect the created world, in this case, with catastrophic consequences.

“By means of these” refers to both the water and the Word. In the story of creation, God’s Word brings life and existence out of the waters of chaos, turning them into waters of life.

In the story of the flood, God declares that he will destroy the world, and water becomes the agent of chaos and destruction.

So how can the false teachers claim that everything has remained the same since the beginning of creation and therefore God doesn’t care? God did intervene on a global scale. He flooded the world because of its moral depravity! Interestingly, the Flood destroyed a wicked and evil world that lived as though God didn’t matter, which is exactly the mistake that Peter’s false teachers are making. What God did before, he can surely do again if he chooses. Which brings us to the third of Peter’s examples.

Example 3: The Future Fire

The third example, well, it’s not actually an example from the past. It’s more of a prophecy of the future. It is the necessary conclusion that follows from the first two examples.

In the first two examples, we saw that God’s Word has the power to both create and destroy. God’s Word has the power to establish order and peace as well as to remove that order and peace when mankind rebels against him. Contrary to what the false teachers think, God is and has always been and will always be in absolute control of his universe.

And so:

“By the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.”

Fire is God’s instrument of judgment. We saw in Genesis 19 that God sent fire from heaven to judge Sodom and Gomorrah. In Luke 9:54, we see James and John ask Jesus if they can call down fire from heaven to destroy their enemies. And as much as the false teachers try to deny it, there will be a “day of judgment” where God’s Word will judge them and find them guilty and condemn them to destruction. It is not here yet, but just because it’s taking a while to come doesn’t mean it won’t come at all.

Conclusions

We’ve come to the end of our study for today. Admittedly, the past few weeks have been a bit of a downer. We’ve been focusing on Peter wage verbal war against the false teachers. For good reason, he has been focusing on Old Testament prophecies of judgment and destruction.

So what can we take away from this? Is there good news to be found?

I would say that there is, but it depends on which side you stand. To the false teachers, to those who claim to follow God but are rebels at heart, 2 Peter is terrible news—at least for those who don’t outright ignore it! But for the people of God, for those who are fighting to remain faithful even under pressure, 2 Peter is good, good news.

2 Peter is a reminder that God is still sovereign in the world, even when it may not look like it. It may look as if the most powerful and influential people actively rebel against God and get away with it, while those who try to be faithful get ridiculed and mocked for being “too righteous”. It may look as if those who deny Christ and enjoy all the pleasures of the world are living the good life, while those who remain pure are missing out on “the good stuff” for nothing.

But here is the good news: God’s true followers can rest easy knowing that God will judge the ungodly. Just as Peter reminded his audience to stand strong in the faith, so also I want to remind you that this faith is true. This religion called Christianity, this story about a God who became a man to live, to die, and to live again—it’s all still true today. As the prophet Isaiah puts it, the grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of the Lord endures forever. God is still sovereign over this world. The Spirit of God is living among us, living in you and me. He knows those who belong to him, and there will come a day when he makes all things right again.

Until then, let us take heart. Let us continue living lives that demonstrate the righteousness of Christ. Sure, we may be mocked for our beliefs about sexual purity. Sure, let people think us strange because of how we don’t frantically pursue financial success. Sure, let people laugh at us for being "holy people”! Because in doing so, we honour God, who will one day divide the faithful from the unfaithful, and he will sendthe unfaithful away from his presence, but to the faithful he will say, “Well done, my good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of your Lord.” And I pray that I will see you there.

Grace and peace to you in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.