2 Peter 3:1-7 Bible Teaching

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2nd Peter 3.1-7
February 28th 2016
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As we have seen Peter has been writing as a means to remind his audience of what they have come to know and to protect them against the influence of the false teachers of his day.

Here in the last chapter it seems that the principal purpose of his epistle is, in the face of scoffers and mocker, to show that Jesus was going to return to the world, that the world would be destroyed by fire, and that believers could trust that a new heaven and a new earth was a coming reality.

Obviously people read this chapter today and assign its contents to themselves, to our day, and believe that what Peter was reassuring his readers of – that Jesus was coming back, the world will be destroyed by fire and the scoffers who said otherwise were wrong – is something we are still waiting to occur.

Most of the Christian world reads this chapter this way. Not me, and there is a growing group of believers that concur.

So let’s read 2nd Peter chapter 3 verse 1:

2nd Peter 3:1 This second epistle, beloved, I now write unto you; in both which I stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance:
2 That ye may be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and of the commandment of us the apostles of the Lord and Savior:
3 Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts,
4 And saying, 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.

Alright, let’s go back to verse 1 and 2

“This second epistle, beloved, I now write unto you; in both which I stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance: that ye may be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and of the commandment of us the apostles of the Lord and Savior:”

The writer, who I believe was Peter, admits here that this is his second Epistle and adds that “in both” his purpose were to “stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance” that “they might be mindful (or remember) the words spoken of by the holy prophets and of the commandments “of us” (the apostles) of the Lord and Savior.”

You have been given important truths – through words – written (by the prophets of Old and by “us the Apostles” and I’m writing to bring all of them to your remembrance.

Why? They were in danger of forgetting them – especially in the presence of false teachers who were speaking against the truths that were shared.

And so he says that he writes to “stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance.”

I love this line.

The word rendered pure used here is

“i-lik-ree-nance”

And it is rooted in the “sun’s rays.” So what is means is to judge or examine something by the light of the sun, or without the clouds of obfuscation, which can come by outside influences, our own desires, or misinformation we have been given and believed.

Peter is seeking for these believers to really examine their “pure minds” in the light of day, in the presence of motives and hearts for truth.

Certainly the Holy Spirit was calling and leading them to sincerity but we can get confused amidst a chorus of confounding voices and part of the Apostles job was to confront and confound those forces that sought to disarm the believers of that day.

Peter is calling them to refer to the WORDS of both the PROPHETS and the APOSTLES (themselves) regarding the topic in question – the return of Jesus to the earth.

Jude 1:18 says that it had been foretold by the apostles, that in “the last days” there would be “scoffers” and Peter uses the same term.

Peter tells them to refer to the “prophets” because there was no New Testament for them to refer to on prophecy at that time.

Many of the most important doctrines respecting the kingdom of the Messiah are stated as clearly in the Old Testament as in the New – especially to a Jew living in a time when the end of their age was coming to an end.

We need to remember that when Peter wrote there was a really good reason for Him to tell them to read the Prophets – its all they really had.

Admittedly some of Paul’s writings could be read and appealed to but very little of what makes our New Testament would have been available to all believers then.

So Peter says, read the Prophets – they will clear the air of obfuscation in your minds regarding the truth of things.

Peter adds for them to also consult

“the commandment of us the apostles of the Lord and Savior.”

Which could be found in some of the available epistles and also heard verbally from the mouths of the Apostles still alive.

Then he adds why he gives this advice (verse 3)
3 Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts,

Jude 1:18 says that the fact that there would be “mockers in the last time,” was something that the Apostles had been particularly warning believers about.

“Knowing this that there shall come in the last days scoffers.”

Now remember the context. Peter has been warning and describing the false teachers of his day – in detail.

And here he says that the first thing for His audience to remember was for them to KNOW that THERE SHALL COME IN THE LAST DAYS scoffers.

“There shall come.”

Had false teachers and mockers come to the people in Peter’s day? Without question. And because “they had come” we know then that these are the “last days” the Apostle was speaking about.

“Then and there,” because in “the last days scoffers WOULD come!” Get it?

If, in chapter two, Peter had been warning about false teachers and described WHAT THEY WOULD be like we could suggest that false teachers and scoffers had NOT YET COME . . . and that maybe we were still waiting on them – even unto this day.

But because he describes them in detail as HAVING ARRIVED even to the point that they were stealing away the hearts of the believers then and there, then when he says that in the last days they would come we know that the last days were the last days of the world Peter and all those around him had enjoyed, were about to end.

This view will now assist us in interpreting and understanding the rest of the chapter and its highly evocative and apocalyptic language.

Of course I want to reiterate, using the scripture, that the Apostles spoke of the time that they were in as the last days, the end of that age and of that time.

Paul wrote in 1st Corinthians 4:9
“For I think that God hath set forth us the apostles last . . .”

For those who claim to have seen Jesus we have a unique situation as Paul says

1st Corinthians 15:8 “And last of all he was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time.

The only way this could be true (IF others have seen appearances of Jesus) would mean that when Paul says, “last of all,” he was referring to all people in his age and time.

Paul told his readers in 2nd Timothy 3:1
“This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.” Admittedly, this does not mean that they were in the last days, but he was speaking to them and did give them this insight, and they certainly were living in perilous times.

The writer of Hebrews, speaking of God speaking to us through His Son, says it this way

“God hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son . . .”

Of course we have covered that Peter himself wrote in (1st Peter 1:5) that

“salvation was ready to be revealed in the last time.”

And in 1st Peter 1:20 that Jesus was “verily foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you,”

And we know John wrote in 1st John 2:18:

“Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time.

Peter also said (1st Peter 4:17)

“For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God?”

That John the Revelator wrote in Revelation 1:3

“Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein: for the time is at hand.”

That the writer of Hebrews 9:26, speaking of Jesus manifestation in flesh, said:

“. . . but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.”

So we can see that the writer of Hebrews likened the end of the world to the day Jesus came in the flesh.

Of course Peter clearly shows that he believed that the end of the world was approaching in his day when he said in 1st Peter 4:7

“But the end of all things is at hand: be ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer.”

And James was no different when he wrote in James 5:8:

“Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.”

Paul added in Philippians 4:5

“Let your moderation be known unto all men. The Lord is at hand.”

Then reiterated in 2nd Thessalonians 2:2 to the believers in Thessalonica

That ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand.

So when Peter says:

“Know this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts . . .

He was without question, and based on contextual study, that he (and James, and Paul, and Jude, and John, and the writer of Hebrews) were ALL convinced that they were in the “last days,” that this was “the end of the world,” that Jesus was, in fact, “coming back,” and that scoffers “in that age” would mock the premise and those who believed it.

The word translated in the King James as scoffers, as stated, is translated in Jude 1:18 as mockers and it means people who were deriding, reproaching, and ridiculing those who believed Jesus was coming back for them.

This time and age was pictured in the days of Noah when he too warned that the end was near and was mocked and derided for his preaching.

For me – and I admit I may be wrong – but to me we are able to see a clear pattern here in these stories.

What I mean by this is God has worked through and used a grand narrative, going all the way back to Genesis, to describe His ultimate work of redeeming the individual.

Let me explain.

We can see that the chosen, anointed apostles were convinced that the end was near. The end of that world, that age, that dispensation.

It would be wiped out by fire which would culminated on a very specific area – Jerusalem – and NOT the entire world (even though some of the verbiage used to describe the end of this age seems to describe the entire kosmos.)

Similarly, in Noah’s day, Noah preached of the flood which also was coming and would wipe out “that whole world” – the world were all humans lived.

I suggest that this was a giant basin centered in the middle east. A limited geographical area yet an area that contained all human beings on earth at the time.

We read the story and assume that all the animals in the world were fit into that ark. We also maintain that water covered the whole world to the point it covered the tops of the highest mountains.

But just as the fire that destroyed the “world religious economy of the Jews, and the Law, and the Temple” only fell on Jerusalem, I would suggest that the destroying waters ONLY fell on a certain geographical basin, and that Noah took all the animal from that basin.

For me, if we start with Noah and the huge geographical area (“that world”) destroyed by water, then we take a smaller area (“that world” – Jerusalem) which was destroyed by fire, we now come to the fact that each individual, at the end of their respective world, also has the elements of their respective lives which were resistant to God similarly purged – after this life and at the coming destruction all face who are protected by the shed blood of Christ.

Those who were destroyed in Noah’s day were scoffers and mockers who walked in their own way.

Those who were destroyed in the destruction of Jerusalem were the scoffers that, as he says in verse three:

“walked after their own lusts.”

And, according to scripture, the same end seems to apply to each individual who lives their respective lives in a similar manner.

Getting back to the scoffers in Peter’s day he gives us some insight to their particular ridicule at verse four:

4 (That they were saying,) “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.”

Evidently, in Peter’s day the scoffers were implying that the promises of Jesus return had utterly failed – that there was not the slightest evidence that it would be accomplished and that those who bought into His return were entirely deluded.

Now, and this is important, DUE TO THE WORDS OF THE APOSTLES and EVEN THE WORDS OF JESUS TO HIS APOSTLES BEFORE ASCENDING INTO HEAVEN its probable that some or many of the early Christians had been claiming that Jesus was returning.

Maybe, like believers continue to do today, some had assigned actual dates or times to the event.

The cynics retorts were,

“look around!

“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.”

“Ever since the prophet and our forefathers were alive and died the physical world continues on as it has from the beginning of creation!

The waves still roar, the sun still rises in the east, sets in the west. Where is the promise of His coming?” They seemed to cry.

Now, remember, these false teachers, these wells without water, had walked from the faith, so they saw the world through natural eyes and not spiritual.

It appears – to me, at least – that they were somehow believing (like many do today) that when Jesus returned the WHOLE world was going to be wiped out.

It is also possible what many Christians contributed to this idea and, like many continue to do today, were preaching that everything in and on earth was going to burn.

We are going to read some language from Peter that lends to this imagery, so it’s easy to see why the scoffers may have had this impression.

Add in the fact that when we scoff at things we typically trod on areas and subjects we do not fully understand, and so when Christians said, “the end is near,” they took the claims to a hyperbolic level instead of taking the time to know what this really meant – the end of the age of the Jew, and the beginning of an entirely new heaven and new earth, which was centered and run from on high.

When these scoffers, who probably at one time in their lives believed the Messiah would come and save them as a King here on earth, saw that His Kingdom was not of this world, its possible that the promise of His return to wipe things out physically was just too far fetched.

Let me wrap today up with some insights regarding Jesus and His reign on earth as is predicted by believers today who expect Him to come back and establish His kingdom here on earth.

I learned much here from Don Preston and also Lloyd Dale.

Let’s talk about the Biblical concept of the
“two births” of Jesus as they relate to Covenant Worlds.

Jesus was born twice – physically, then spiritually. Both births were “into” specific Covenant Worlds – the first into the Covenant World of the Jew, and the Second into the Covenant World of Heaven.

According to Matthew and Luke Jesus was most assuredly born in the flesh of the virgin Mary. There were certain limitations inherent in this first birth but they were limitations that were foundational to His being the Messiah.

The uniqueness of his first birth to the Jews needs to be placed in a biblical framework.

Remember, remember, remember, Jesus was born into the Old Covenant world of Judah (not even Israel, but the Old Coventant world of the Southern Kingdom, Judah. Judah was not “Israel.”

In the first century, when Jesus was born, Israel did not have a “covenant world”
as Israel had been divorced by God and had been not only been put out of the covenantal relationship with God but had been put out of the Promised Land in the 8th century BC.

Remember all but Judah and Benjamin had been scattered before Jesus was born.

Of course He was “born of a woman, born under the law” (Galatians. 4:4). He appeared “in the last days of that Old Mosaic World”, right?

He did not minister to the Gentiles but was sent only “to the lost sheep
of the house of Israel” – who at the time of His birth were only Benjamin and Judah (Matthew 15:24).

Of course John 1 tells us that “He came into his own (and His own was literally the tribe of Judah) He doesn’t seem to have traveled outside of “Judea) the land of Judah with the exception of Galilee of the Gentiles, and other areas occupied by the Samaritans [part Jew part Gentile).

We often overlook this very limited application or exposure of Jesus “first birth.” But we cannot lose sight of the fact that Jesus, as Romans 15:8 says, “was a minister of the circumcision, for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made unto the fathers.”

During his personal earthly physical ministry Jesus sent his disciples on
different “limited commissions” emphatically instructing them, “Do not go along a road of the Gentiles, and do not enter into a city of the Samaritans, but journey rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And as you journey, proclaim, and say the “The kingdom of heaven has come near.”

Jesus instructed His disciples to avoid roads “leading to a Gentile city” and to stay out of Samaritan cities and direct their travels instead to the “lost sheep of the house of Israel” who are scattered among and swallowed up of the Gentiles.

“Salvation,” Jesus said in John 4:22, “is of the Jews” meaning that salvation to the world could only come when Israel’s Messiah had fulfilled “all the law and the prophets.”

Therefore, Jesus’ first birth was limited in regard to the world into which he was born; the Old Covenant World of Judah.

Got all that?

Having been born into the Old Covenant world of Judah there was a restriction on Jesus’ work as Messiah.

Listen carefully – according to Zechariah 6:12-13 the Messiah was to be king and priest on his throne.

This wouldn’t necessarily begin at the same time but they would occur.

Hebrews 7:14 tells us that Jesus was of the tribe of Judah. This means Jesus could never be a physical, on-earth, in the flesh priest as foretold by Zechariah and the Psalms because, as the writer of Hebrews says in Hebrews 8:5)

“if He were on earth He should not be priest, seeing there are priests that offer gifts according to the law.”

In other words Jesus’ earthly ministry prohibited Him from fulfilling the prophecies of the priestly function of the Messiah because his fleshly birth placed him outside the sanction of that Old Covenant in regard to priesthood!

This fact has “profound implications for the millennial or futuritst view that insists Jesus came to be a king, (thus a priest), on earth.

Israel’s law forbad the Messiah from being
a priest because the Messiah was of the tribe of Judah (Isaiah. 11:1).

But futurist say Jesus would have been king on earth, (and will be yet under the
restored Old Covenant system), had he not been rejected.

This is clearly false (in the light of Hebrews 8:5). Jesus could never be a priest on earth in any way physically under the Old Covenant and if not a priest then He could never be a king on earth either!

However, Christ’s Priesthood and Kingship were once and for all “revealed” in power and glory at his coming ((“in His Parousia”)) at the end of the
Old World in A.D. 70

When this was completed, which was the central message of the “New Jerusalem,” which included the completed and perfected New Temple which would come down from heaven, and the cry would go forth, “the tabernacle of God is with man.” (as found in Revelation 21:1-4).

In other words the physical birth of Jesus therefore definitely had limiting factors in regard to his Messianic mission.

It seems undoubtable that Jesus was not recognized by His own. John says that He came unto His own but His own “knew him not.”

Several times Jesus warned his
audience, (even demons!), not to make him known! Why do we suppose that is? Because there were two aspects of the work of Messiah, one hidden, one
reveled in His glory.

Bible scholar Edersheim says that “even among the Jews there was an expectation of “a temporary obscuration of the Messiah.”

How widely this obscuration is unknown. But what we do know is that the Jews thought they knew Jesus when in truth they did not know him at all.

They also thought they knew exactly what was to be done by Messiah, but in fact, did not understand God’s plan at all.

This reality is driven home in Luke 24. Thinking that Jesus was truly dead, the
disciples, not recognizing the resurrected Lord, said to him,

“We thought it was He that was to redeem Israel” (Luke 24:21). They had no idea that He had.

Listen – like the modern dispensationalists and futurists, who claim that the cross somehow STOPPED the plan for Christ to reign on earth as a King and Priest, and therefore say He needs to return to be these things – these Jews missed the purpose of the Cross and His death too.

NT Wright and other scholars recognize that while what Jesus did was not what the Jews expected, nonetheless, what he did was exactly what God planned.

Wright says, speaking of Paul’s message that,

“One of the central tensions in Paul’s thought, giving it again and again, its creative edge, is the clash between the
fact that God always intended what has in fact happened, and the fact that not even
the most devout Israelite had dreamed that it would happen like this.”

Another commentator, Kee, commenting on Acts 3:19 says,

“Neither the Jewish nor the Roman leaders were aware of the divine plan and its cosmic consequences that their humanly despicable plot to destroy Jesus would achieve.”

Jesus’ humble physical birth and ministry fulfilled the “hidden” aspect of the
Messianic prophecies.

Remember what Isaiah said? He said that the Messiah would not break a bruised reed nor extinguish a smoking flax (Isaiah 42:1-4).

These are pictures of humility, gentility, and not the images of glorification, and conquering might!

Jesus’ first birth then, by purpose and prophecy, placed certain limitations on
Jesus. (Says Dale, “Just as our first birth placed limitations on us.”)

These limitations were the first step that would lead inexorably to the full revelation of the Messiah.

And this full revelation was completed when Jesus could reign as a King and a Priest from heaven – where everything is based.

The idea of a futuristic return and reign of Him is not only against all the evidence in scripture that His own apostles said He was about to return and end the age, but it is clearly against the fact that for Him to reign on earth as a physical King and Priest was against the physical Law – which He came to fulfill, and replace with a new way, a new heaven, a new earth, and a New Jerusalem.

More next week.

Q and A
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