It's about time

The measurement of time has been consistent since the beginning. Yes, various calendars throughout the ages had to be retooled to fit our current Gregorian calendar, but the measurement of time has never been altered. A day was 24 hours in the beginning and it stands that way today. God graciously created time for our benefit.

Yet, when it comes to interpreting time sensitive words in the Bible concerning eschatological (last days) events that were to take place shortly, soon, at hand, or quickly, we’re constantly told that accepted linguistic rules simply don’t apply. So, contrary to the way all other pieces of literature in history are understood, many argue that the very Word of the living God stands completely alone in the way it must be interpreted. Let me elaborate.

When we read verses like “He who is coming will come and will not delay” (Heb 10:37), “the end of all things is near” (1 Pet 4:7) and “things which must take place shortly” (Rev 1:1), we immediately default to an interpretational free-for-all arguing that time must be allegorized. It’s bizarre that this principle of interpretation has become the default position. If a passage doesn’t fit our preconceived eschatological paradigm, we lose all sense of intellectual honesty and look for an excuse to change what the plain language of these passages imply.

The argument usually goes like this. God is infinite and with Him there is neither beginning nor end. Therefore, to an eternal God, time is irrelevant. To Him a day is as a thousand years and a thousand years is as a day. All completely true. So, when God, through His inspired Canon authors, says that something must come to pass shortly, we immediately assume that God doesn’t really mean it. It’s assumed that God has chosen to speak in a manner only He can comprehend… and therefore, soon can be thousands of years and thousands of years can be soon.

If I had a dollar for every time someone quoted 2 Peter 3:8, “with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day” when confronted with passages they struggle to understand in context, I would be a wealthy man. Is this truly a legitimate method of interpretation? Every we come across “the end of all things is near”, is using 2 Peter 3:8 a legitimate argument which allows us to ignore the imminence and say, “God’s ways are not our way?”

Have you ever wondered why, if this passage means that time is irrelevant to God as He relates to His finite creatures, does He ever choose to use time sensitive words? Seriously, why? Why not, “the end of all things will one day come?” Why, when God fully knows what is meant by “soon” does He choose language which might confuse us? If soon and at hand can mean far-off, how can we know when God is speaking literally (as if He actually meant soon or far) and when He is speaking in some ethereal, eternal, other-worldly context? We act as though God is engaging in subterfuge and that concerns me a great deal.

We seem to forget that the Bible was written TO finite man who has both a beginning and an end. If we default to playing the 2nd Peter 3:8 card every time we are uncomfortable with the implications of a passage, pause and ask yourself if this is an honest interpretational rule. I find it ironic that those who consider themselves “literalists” are the ones who are so quick to nullify the imminent time expectancy of any anticipated event. If, in a given verse we aren’t supposed to know if shortly means thousands of years or if it actually means shortly, how can we possible understand what God is attempting to communicate?

Whether we read a piece of literature from the 2nd, 12th or 21st centuries, time is never allegorized, well except for interpreters of the Bible. If any author expects his/her readers to understand what he/she has written, how could “shortly” be stretched, elasticized or massaged? In all literature except THE ONE which is inspired, authoritative and inerrant, when something was said to take place soon or perhaps far off, we know exactly what the author means. So, how have we come to this place where the simplest of language (time sensitive words) has become so utterly ambiguous?

Let’s consider a few examples. When you read the following verse, do you have any doubt if Festus intended to remain only for a short period?

(Acts 25:4) us then answered that Paul was being kept in custody in Caesarea, and that he himself was about to leave shortly (tachos). 

Is there any ambiguity concerning what Festus meant by shortly? Does anyone actually think that Festus waited indefinitely? One need only read down two verses…

(Acts 25:6) After Festus had spent no more than eight or ten days among them, he went down to Caesarea, and on the next day he took his seat on the tribunal and ordered that Paul be brought.

So, why don’t we immediately assume that Festus may have remained for 10 or 20 years? You say, that’s absurd! And I agree because it’s obvious, but no less obvious than any other verse which contains similar imminent language. It should go without saying what the Greek word tachos (shortly) means, but sadly, it has become vogue to argue that shortly can mean thousands of years i.e. if it doesn’t fit the reader’s eschatological paradigm. Don’t you find it odd that we only use the 2 Peter 3:8 excuse in prophetic passages?

I would venture to guess that no one reading the above would question what Luke meant by shortly. And they, therefore, have no problem recognizing that tachos, in fact, means shortly.

Let’s look at a few more usages of tachos?

(1 Tim 3:14) I am writing these things to you, hoping to come to you before long;

(Acts 12:7) And behold, an angel of the Lord suddenly stood near Peter, and a light shone in the cell; and he struck Peter’s side and woke him, saying, “Get up quickly.” And his chains fell off his hands.

(Acts 22:8) and I saw Him saying to me, ‘Hurry and get out of Jerusalem quickly, because they will not accept your testimony about Me.’

In these verses is there a even a remote doubt what tachos means? Whatever was going to happen, it would take place soon.

Let me also introduce another way to play fast and loose with the word tachos. Some have tried to another nuanced method of linguistic gymnastics. They say that tachos can mean doing something with incredible speed, and therefore, they argue that it has nothing to do with the duration of time until the event is supposed to take place. But rather it’s all about speed. Is this a legitimate argument?

Let’s see. Does it make any sense that “hurry and get out of Jerusalem quickly,” meant that they were supposed to wait for a long period, and then suddenly flee on a dead run? This is an absurd assertion driven solely by presupposition.

It might surprise you to know that I have actually heard a pastor use the above rationale that “tachos means lightning speed” in the following two verses. And, admittedly, I am baffled by it.

(Rev 1:1) The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show to His bond-servants, the things which must soon take place; and He sent and communicated it by His angel to His bond-servant John,

(Rev 22:6) And he said to me, “These words are faithful and true”; and the Lord, the God of the spirits of the prophets, sent His angel to show His bond-servants the things which must soon take place.

As the pastor began to preach through the Revelation (the unveiling) he actually argued that “must soon take place” had nothing whatsoever to do with the near-term expectancy of the events described thereafter. And he didn’t even play the 2nd Peter 3:8 “time is irrelevant to God” card. Rather, he argued that when the things were to happen they would happen with lightning quick speed. In other words, he said that tachos had to do with the speed of execution and was completely disconnected from the duration of time until fulfillment. So, in effect he said that Jesus could wait thousands of years and then when He executed the events He would do it with incredible speed. I don’t mean to sound harsh, but I am incredulous at such an assertion. Not only is that none what the word means, it’s never used that way in the Bible.

(Revelation 1:1)
1 This is the revelation of Jesus Christ [His unveiling of the divine mysteries], which God [the Father] gave to Him to show to His bond-servants (believers) the things which must soon take place [in their entirety]; and He sent and communicated it by His angel (divine messenger) to His bond-servant John,

Why would anyone much less a pastor make this argument? Because he simply refuses to acknowledge that the events in the Revelation “MUST take place shortly.” And, does “MUST take place FAST” even make sense? This, in my view, is a sad commentary on the state of hermeneutics employed by too many pastors.

The fact that tachos is never used in this manner doesn’t seem to be enough of a roadblock. I’m sure he hasn’t been the only one to make this argument, so it makes one wonder who originally concocted this idea? On its surface it seems absurd but digging deeper it is, borders on dishonest. I’m not accusing this pastor of intentional dishonesty because he has probably taken someone else’s word for it, but he is nonetheless responsible to rightly divide the Word. So I’m confident there was no ill intent, but at best it’s sloppy and unscholarly. That seems to be the lay of the land in the 21st century Wild West of hermeneutics. It seems too many will do anything to maintain their paradigm.

In both instances at the beginning and end of Revelation, tachos clearly means “right away”, having nothing whatsoever to do with the speed in which the event was carried out. If you have fallen for this line of reasoning, please pause and take inventory of how you are interpreting the Bible. This is a really a big deal and unwittingly gives the skeptics and critics fodder to wreak havoc.

So, let’s get back to the 2nd Peter 3:8 “time is irrelevant” card. This kind of interpretational end run is eroding not only the integrity of the Bible but it is compromising our credibility to an already skeptical world. Without presupposition, who would read “things which MUST TAKE PLACE SHORTLY” and think to themselves, oh, that means thousands of years? No one would come to that interpretation without being told.

Humor me and when you come to these “problem passages” (that are only a problem for one whose paradigm requires it), allow the Bible to speak for itself without reading into the Sacred Text. Allow shortly to mean shortly, and at hand to mean at hand and struggle with the implications. Then, if it puts you at odds with what you’ve been taught, perhaps you need to deconstruct a potentially errant view.

Back to the pastor. If it wasn’t problematic enough for him to redefine tachos, he then conveniently neglected to consider the implications of another imminent word two verses down. During the sermon he never even mentioned “for the time is near”. Why? Perhaps because he couldn’t fit “near” into his “it’s gonna happen at the speed of light” redefinition of tachos.

(Rev 1:3) Blessed is the one who reads, and those who hear the words of the prophecy and keep the things which are written in it; for the time is near. 

So what kind of linguistic gymnastics is required to push BOTH “things that must take place shortly” and “for the time is near” into the distant future?

“Near” is the Greek word engys, which means “near, imminent and soon”. So, if this pastor would have simply struggled a bit with the time essence in verse 3, he should have realized the impossibility of shoehorning his wishful redefinition of tachos to mean really, really, really fast. Engys can mean either near in space or time. It CANNOT and DOES NOT mean fast. And if you click on the hyperlinked engys you will see every usage in context. Here are but a few…

(Matt 24:33) so you too, when you see all these things, recognize that He is near, right at the door.

(Luke 21:30) as soon as they put forth leaves, you see for yourselves and know that summer is now near.

(Heb 8:13) When He said, “A new covenant,” He has made the first obsolete. But whatever is becoming obsolete and growing old is about to disappear.

(Rev 22:10) And he said to me, “Do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this book, for the time is near.

So, if one still believes that the “things which must take place shortly”… “for the time is near”, refers to events almost 2,000 years removed from the date the Revelation was written, they have unwittingly assaulted the integrity of language and have abandoned any semblance of sound interpretational methods. Consider these quotes from two 19th century scholars regarding 2 Peter 3:8. The first from Milton S. Terry who wrote “Biblical Hermeneutics.”

The language is a poetical citation from Psalm 90:4, and is adduced to show that the lapse of time does not invalidate the promises of God. . . . But this is very different from saying that when the everlasting God promises something shortly, and declares that it is close at hand, He may mean that it is a thousand years in the future. Whatever He has promised indefinitely He may take a thousand years or more to fulfill; but what He affirms to be at the door let no man declare to be far away. ((Milton S. Terry, Biblical Hermeneutics: A Treatise on the Interpretation of the Old and New Testaments (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1974), 406.))

J. Stuart Russell wrote with a bit more biting disdain for those who used 2 Peter 3:8 so carelessly:

Few passages have suffered more from misconstruction than this, which has been made to speak a language inconsistent with its obvious intention, and even incompatible with a strict regard to veracity.

There is probably an allusion here to the words of the Psalmist, in which he contrasts the brevity of human life with the eternity of the divine existence. . . . But surely it would be the height of absurdity to regard this sublime poetic image as a calculus for the divine measurement of time, or as giving us a warrant for wholly disregarding definitions of time in the predictions and promises of God.

Yet it is not unusual to quote these words as an argument or excuse for the total disregard for the element of time in the prophetic writings. Even in cases where a certain time is specified in the prediction, or where such limitations as ‘shortly,’ or ‘speedily,’ or ‘at hand’ are expressed, the passage before us is appealed to in justification of an arbitrary treatment of such notes of time, so that soon may mean late, and near may mean distant, and short may mean long, and vice versa. . . .

It is surely unnecessary to repudiate in the strongest manner such a non-natural method of interpreting the language of Scripture. It is worse than ungrammatical and unreasonable, it is immoral. It is to suggest that God has two weights and measures in His dealings with men, and that in His mode of reckoning there is an ambiguity and variableness which will make it impossible to tell ‘What manner of time the Spirit of Christ in the prophets may signify’[cf. 1 Pet. 1:11]…

The Scriptures themselves, however, give no countenance to such a method of interpretation. Faithfulness is one of the attributes most frequently ascribed to the ‘covenant-keeping God,’ and the divine faithfulness is that which the apostle in this very passage affirms. . . . The apostle does not say that when the Lord promises a thing for today He may not fulfill His promise for a thousand years: that would be slackness; that would be a breach of promise. He does not say that because God is infinite and everlasting, therefore He reckons with a different arithmetic from ours, or speaks to us in a double sense, or uses two different weights and measures in His dealings with mankind. The very reverse is the truth. . . .

It is evident that the object of the apostle in this passage is to give his readers the strongest assurance that the impending catastrophe of the last days were on the very eve of fulfillment. The veracity and faithfulness of God were the guarantees of the punctual performance of the promise. To have intimated that time was a variable quantity in the promise of God would have been to stultify and neutralize his own teaching, which was that ‘the Lord is not slack concerning His promise.’ ((J. Stuart Russell, The Parousia (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, [1887] 1983), 321ff. Owen, “Providential Changes: An Argument for Universal Holiness,” 134–35.))

Did you catch that? J. Stuart Russell didn’t just say that using 2 Peter 3:8 in this manner is ungrammatical, but is actually immoral.

Listen, I understand why so many covet the use of 2 Peter 3:8. I truly do. Anything to avoid dealing with the possibility that the Olivet Discourse/John’s Apocalypse, pertained to events in the first century and aren’t in our short-term future. As unnerving and disorienting as that is, wouldn’t it better to abandon the absurd notion that God can’t communicate clearly? God can, in fact, tell time and He made it abundantly clear through the prophet Ezekiel that he would no longer put up with those who refused to believe Him.

(Ezek 12:21-25) ²¹ Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying, ²² “Son of man, what is this proverb you people have about the land of Israel, saying, ‘The days are long, and every vision fails’? ²³ Therefore say to them, ‘This is what the Lord God says: “I will put an end to this proverb so that they will no longer use it as a proverb in Israel.” But tell them, “The days are approaching as well as the fulfillment of every vision. ²⁴ For there will no longer be any false vision or deceptive divination within the house of Israel. ²⁵ For I the Lord will speak whatever word I speak, and it will be performed. It will no longer be delayed, for in your days, you rebellious house, I will speak the word and perform it,” declares the Lord God.’”

God made it crystal clear that whatever He spoke would NOT and could NOT be delayed. So why do people still cling so tightly to this elasticizing time method of interpretation? Because if we are forced to abandon playing the 2 Peter 3:8 card every time we encounter a verse that we don’t like the implication of, we will have to confront the reality of what the verse actually says.

for a more in-depth analysis of God’s usage of time throughout the Bible, click on this link.

Many scholars argue that Matthew 24 (the Olivet discourse) should be divided at verse 36. They say that when Jesus used the phrase “But of THAT DAY” this is a clear demarcation of a changing subject matter. So they contend that through verse 35 Jesus was speaking of the “end of the age” and the destruction of Jerusalem, and then in 36 Jesus was speaking of His parousia at the end of time. At first glance this argument may sound tenable.

Matthew 24:34-36
34 Assuredly, I say to you, this generation will by no means pass away till all these things take place. 35 Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will by no means pass away.
36 “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only.

Is verse 36 a dividing line in the chapter separated by 2,000 years? After employing “the analogy of faith” (allowing Scripture to interpret Scripture), one wonders why so many commentators and scholars came to the above conclusion. (The Olivet is found in Matthew 24, Luke 17, 21 and Mark 13) Look at the chart below.

Let’s break it down to make this clearer in order to test this “divided” hypothesis:

(SECTION A) includes events associated with the “end of the age and the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70 – Matthew 24:1-35
(SECTION B) includes events still future to us – Matthew 24:36-51

Look at SECTION A on the upper left. It contains 3 events:
1. Housetop vv. 17-18
2. Lightning vv 26-27
3. Vulture vv 28

Then in SECTION B just below that, it contain 2 events:
4. Noah vv. 36-39
5. Two men vv. 40-41

Now let’s look at Luke’s account from in chapter 17 (on the right above) Luke 17 discusses the same events as Matthew 24, however there is not even a hint that two different time periods are under consideration. “On that day” in Luke’s account Jesus is referring to not going down from the housetop, yet in Matthew’s Gospel that same event is well before the dividing line in verse 36.

Luke lumps all these events together as if they would all happen in the same “day that the Son of Man is revealed” (vs. 30). Friend, Ed Stevens, wrote, “Luke gives no indication that he is talking about two different groups of events that would occur at two separate comings of the Son of Man separated by thousands of years.”

Notice on the chart above that Luke mentions the same events as Matthew, but in a different order. Matthew’s order is 1-2-3-4-5, but Luke’s order is scrambled 2-4-1-5-3! Luke has an event from SECTION A followed by one from SECTION B, then another from SECTION A followed by SECTION B, and finally one from SECTION A.

This presents what appears to be an insurmountable problem for those who believe that Matthew 24 should be divided.  If Matthew was referencing two sections (or two different time periods), then Luke’s account is incorrect, because he mixes the five events up as if they are all to happen in one time period. So, either Luke is mistaken (and therefore uninspired), or it is errant to divide Matthew 24 into two sections.

Stevens again, “Of course, the solution to this is that both Matthew and Luke speak of the same events which would all happen in the same time period. And, Matthew 24:34 tells us when that time period was to occur: the “generation” alive when He spoke those words (the generation from AD 30-70)! This is all the more apparent when we compare Matt. 24:34 (“this generation”) with Jesus’ comments a few hours before in Matt. 23:36 (“this generation”), as well as his statements to the disciples that “some of those standing here shall not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in His Kingdom” (Matt. 16:28).”

For further argumentation I recommend reading chapter 9 of John L. Bray’s “Matthew 24 Fulfilled”. I’ll link it HERE. If you would like to purchase the book, go to American Vision.

By Gary DeMar and David Chilton
Posted: MONDAY, OCTOBER 11, 2010 BY GARY DEMAR

If there’s one passage of Scripture that is repeatedly brought up as an indictment against anyone who objects to modern-day prophetic speculation, it is 2 Peter 3:3–18. If you dispute with those who argue that all the signs around us indicate that we are living in the “last days,” then you are labeled a “scoffer” or a “mocker” (2 Peter 3:3). If this is true, then how should we describe those who argued that proposed signs during the two world wars were not signs of the end? They were right! Were they “scoffers”? The same could be asked about those who rejected the claim that events surrounding the French Revolution in the 18th century were sure signs of a prophetic end of all things. Every generation has had those who claimed the end was near and those who argued that the end was not near. Appealing to contemporary signs to make predictions of a near end has a long history as Francis Gumerlock demonstrates in his book The Day and the Hour. One would think that by now Christians would stop doing it. But they don’t. They know revving people up over the “last days” sells books, lots of books.

The people Peter accuses of being “scoffers” were enemies of Jesus and the gospel. They scoffed at the claims made by Jesus that the temple would be destroyed and Jesus Himself would be the one to make it happen before their generation passed away. Since more than 30 years had passed since Jesus made this prediction, and the temple was still standing with no indication that it would be destroyed in less than a decade, they began to mock the words of Jesus. There’s a big difference between a “scoffer” who rejects biblical revelation, in this case, Jesus’ words, and someone who argues for an alternative position using sound biblical arguments. A person who disagrees with modern-day prophetic speculation is not a “scoffer,” especially when there have been so many failed attempts at predicting the certainty of the end over the years. One could just as easily make the case that modern-day prophetic speculators (you know who they are) are “scoffers” and “mockers” because they twist and distort Jesus’ clear words that He would return in judgment before that first-century generation passed away (Matt. 24:34). They try to argue that the Greek word genea, best translated as “generation,” can be translated as “race” or “nation.” When that doesn’t work, some argue that “this generation” (what’s present), should be translated “that generation” (what’s future). When Jesus’ clear words don’t suit their prophetic paradigm, words are removed and new words added. “This generation” becomes, “the generation that sees these signs,” as if Jesus was addressing a generation other than the one to whom He was speaking. Jesus made it clear that His present audience (“you”) would “see all these things” (Matt. 24:33).

Second Peter 3 links “scoffers” (v. 3 in KJV; “mockers” in NASV) with “the last days” (v. 3), “the promise of His coming” (v. 4), the “day of the Lord” (v. 10), and the passing away of the “heavens” and the “earth” (v. 10). The “last days,” in Peter’s use of the phrase, is not code for events leading up to either the “rapture” or the second coming. Gordon Clark comments:

“The last days,” which so many people think refers to what is sill future at the end of this age, clearly means the time of Peter himself. I John 2:18 says it is, in his day, the last hour. Acts 2:17 quoted Joel as predicting the last days as the lifetime of Peter. . . . Peter obviously means his own time. ((Gordon H. Clark, II Peter: A Short Commentary (Nutley, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1975), 64.))

There are other passages like Hebrews 1:1–2 (notice the use of the plural near demonstrative “these”), Hebrews 9:26 (notice the use of “now”), 1 Corinthians 10:11 (“upon whom the ends of the ages have come”), and James 5:3 (the storing up of their treasure was in “the last days”). The question is: The last days of what? The last days of the old covenant with its stone temple, blood sacrifices, and earthly sinful priesthood.

Given that most Christians who make the “scoffer” charge are premillennial, that is, they believe that after a future seven-year period of great tribulation, a thousand year reign of Jesus on the earth will immediately follow. It’s only after this 1007-year period that the events described in 2 Peter 3 are said to be fulfilled. The “new heaven and a new earth” comes into existence after “the first heaven and the first earth passed away” (Rev. 21:1). These events follow the thousand year period of Revelation 20. Given premillennial assumptions (which I believe are wrong), it is biblical to argue that the events described by Peter cannot be near. How can a person be a “scoffer” or a “mocker” of near events when the supposed dissolution of the cosmos is more than a millennium away? It doesn’t make any sense. The charge only makes sense if the described events are actually near, near to Peter’s generation.

Those in Peter’s audience were looking “for these things” (2 Peter 3:3). How could they be looking for “these things” if they were at least 1007 years in their future? In fact, once Jesus sets foot on planet earth again, according to premillennialism, it will be quite easy to calculate when the events of 2 Peter 3 will take place—exactly a thousand years later. To silence a “scoffer,” all a person has to say is, “Look, God promised that these events won’t happen for a thousand years.” This means that for the premillennialist, the events revealed and described by Peter can’t have anything to do with our time. They are still far in the future. This means that this section of Scripture can’t be used to club those who reject the notion that we are living in the last days. Peter specifically says, once again following the premillennial paradigm, the last days are at this moment in time at least 1007 years in the future. So, if the “last days” refer to the period just before the dissolution of the cosmos that is at least 1007 years in our future, then we can’t be living in the “last days” and there are no signs that can be called in evidence to support the claim that a new physical heaven and earth are on the prophetic horizon.

The language of 2 Peter 3 is certainly apocalyptic and world ending, but is Peter describing the end of the space time universe as we generally conceive it or is he describing the end of a different type of world? The only way to know is to study similar language found in the Old Testament. In Micah 1:1, a prophetic word was revealed “to Micah of Moresheth in the days of Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, which he saw concerning Samaria and Jerusalem.” Micah’s prophecy isn’t about a time in the distant future. Rather, it’s about “the rebellion of Jacob and for the sins of the house of Israel” because of “the high place of Judah” (Micah 1:5). The prophecy is about a time when idol worship dominated the nation (Micah 1:6–7). Notice how the imminent judgment is described:

Hear, O peoples, all of you; Listen, O earth and all it contains,
And let the Lord GOD be a witness against you,
The Lord from His holy temple.
For behold, the Lord is coming forth from His place.
He will come down and tread on the high places of the earth.
The mountains will melt under Him
And the valleys will be split,
Like wax before the fire,
Like water poured down a steep place.

God is calling the world as a witness against His covenant people who had the law against idols and graven images given to them in a personal way, in commandments written on stone (Rev. 20). God is described coming down that has the effect of melting the mountains, splitting the valleys, and flooding the land with the melted debris. This language is used elsewhere to describe similar local events (Judges 5:4; 2 Sam. 22; Ps. 18:7–10; 68:8; Isa. 64:1–2). It’s the language of decreation. Did the mountains melt? No more than the “foundations of the world were laid bare” (Psalm 18:15) when David battled “all his enemies” (see the Prologue to the Psalm).

We find something similar in the book of Zephaniah. A local judgment that has national consequences for Judah and Jerusalem (1:4) is described in a way that depicts the end of the earth and every living thing on it:

“I will completely remove all things
From the face of the earth,” declares the Lord.
“I will remove man and beast;
I will remove the birds of the sky
And the fish of the sea,
And the ruins along with the wicked;
And I will cut off man from the face of the earth,” declares the Lord (Zeph. 1:2–3).

This local judgment is a reversal of creation. Later in the chapter we read, “Near is the great day of the Lord, near and coming very quickly. . . . And all the earth will be devoured in the fire of His jealousy, for He will make a complete end, indeed a terrifying one, of all the inhabitants of the earth” (1:14, 18). Notice the use of “fire,” “a complete end,” including the end of the earth. Peter uses the same language. He writes from the vantage point of his day that “the end of all things is at hand” (1 Peter. 4:7; cf. “in these last times”: 1:20). Like in Zephaniah, this prophetic description can hardly be a declaration that the end of the physical universe was about to take place. The Bible’s use of “at hand” (near) indicates that whatever this end is, it was near for Peter and his first-century audience. Jay E. Adams offers a helpful commentary on the passage, taking into account its historical and theological context:

In six or seven years from the time of writing, the overthrow of Jerusalem, with all its tragic stories, as foretold in the Book of Revelation and in the Olivet Discourse upon which that part is based, would take place. Titus and Vespasian would wipe out the old order once and for all. All those forces that led to the persecution and exile of these Christians in Asia Minor—the temple ceremonies (outdated by Christ’s death), Pharisaism (with its distortion of O.T. law into a system of works-righteousness) and the political stance of Palestinian Jewry toward Rome—would be erased. The Roman armies would wipe Jewish opposition from the face of the land. Those who survived the holocaust of A.D. 70 would themselves be dispersed around the Mediterranean world. “So,” says Peter, “hold on; the end is near.” The full end of the O.T. order (already made defunct by the cross and the empty tomb) was about to occur. ((Jay E. Adams, Trust and Obey: A Practical Commentary on First Peter (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1978), 129–130.

Adam Clarke (1762–1832) writes the following in his commentary on 1 Peter 4:7:

[First] Peter was written before A.D. 70 (when the destruction of Jerusalem took place)…. The persecution (and martyrdom) that these (largely) Jewish Christians had been experiencing up until now stemmed principally from unconverted Jews (indeed, his readers had found refuge among Gentiles as resident aliens)… [H]e refers to the severe trials that came upon Christians who had fled Palestine under attack from their unconverted fellow Jews. The end of all things (that had brought this exile about) was near.

“Peter says, The end of all things is at hand; and this he spoke when God had determined to destroy the Jewish people and their polity by one of the most signal judgments that ever fell upon any nation or people. In a very few years after St. Peter wrote this epistle, even taking it at the lowest computation, viz., A. D. 60 or 61, Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans. To this destruction, which was literally then at hand, the apostle alludes when he says, The end of all things is at hand; the end of the temple, the end of the Levitical priesthood, the end of the whole Jewish economy, was then at hand.” (Clarke’s Commentary on The New Testament of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, 2 vols. [New York: Carlton & Porter, 1810], 2:864).))

What “promise of His coming” (2 Peter 3:4) does Peter have in mind? Peter was present when Jesus told him and some of the other apostles, “there are some of those who are standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom.” (Matt. 16:27–28). This event had to be in the lifetime of Jesus’ audience. In similar fashion, Jesus told His disciples that He would return in judgment before “this generation” passed away (24:34). Jesus always uses “this generation” to refer to His contemporaries (Matt. 11:16; 12:41, 42; 23:36; Mark 8:12; 13:30; Luke 7:31; 11:29, 30, 31, 32, 50, 51; 17:25; 21:32). He never uses “this generation” to refer to a future generation.

The parousia (“coming”/ “presence”) is a time of divine judgment (Matt. 24:27) upon the old covenant world. Peter was present when Jesus told him that He would return in judgment within a generation (Mark 13:3, 30). In the next verse, Jesus tells Peter and those who are with him that “heaven and earth will pass away” (Mark 13:31; Matt. 24:35). The burning up of “heaven and earth” is a reference to the end of the old covenant economy. As Jews who were familiar with the Old Testament, they would not have understood Jesus’ words in any other way. Between Matthew 16:27–28 and 24:34, Jesus tells His disciples that Jerusalem will be burned with fire (22:7). With that burning, everything associated with the old economy went with it.

Peter Leithart puts the chapter in context for us:

“But wherever would the mockers have gotten the idea that Jesus was coming before the ‘fathers” died? Why, lo and behold, Jesus said exactly that. The whole debate presupposes that Jesus promised to come soon. Without that premise, neither the mockers’ mockery nor Peter’s letter makes any sense. Peter and his opponents differ on the crucial question of the promise’s reliability, but they agree on its content.” ((Peter J. Leithart, The Promise of His Appearing: An Exposition of Second Peter (Moscow, ID: Canon Press, 2004), 83.))

The “fathers” (2 Peter 3:4) are the true early church fathers, those who died since Jesus promised that they would come before their generation passed away (Matt. 24:34; see 24:9; John 16:2; Acts 7:54–60; 12:2).

There’s much more that can be said about 2 Peter 3. The following section was written by the late David Chilton (1951–1997). David left behind a large body of work on eschatology: a verse-by-verse commentary on the book of Revelation (The Days of Vengeance), a work on prophetic interpretive principles (Paradise Restored), and an exposition of the Olivet Discourse (The Great Tribulation).

PODCAST on 2 Peter 3 – Covenantal not Cosmic

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Looking for a New Heaven and Earth

According to St. Peter’s second epistle, Christ and the apostles had warned that apostasy would accelerate toward the end of the “last days” (2 Pet. 3:2–4; cf. Jude 17–19)—the forty-year period between Christ’s ascension and the destruction of the Old Covenant Temple in A.D. 70. ((For a defense of this position, see David Chilton, Paradise Restored: A Biblical Theology of Dominion, 2nd ed. (Horn Lake, MS: TX: Dominion Press, [1985] 2007), 112–122.

The fact is that every time Scripture uses the term “last days” (and similar expressions) it means, not the end of the physical universe, but the period from A.D. 30 to A.D. 70—the period during which the Apostles were preaching and writing, the “last days” of Old Covenant Israel before it was forever destroyed in the destruction of the Temple (and consequently the annihilation of the Old Covenant sacrificial system) described by Jesus in the Olivet Discourse (Matt. 24:1–34; Acts 2:16–21; 1 Tim. 4:1–3; 2 Tim. 3:1–9; Hebrews 1:1–2; 8:13; 9:26; James 5:7–9; 1 Peter 1:20; 4:7; 1 John 2:18; Jude 17–19).

See also John Bray’s excellent booklet Are We Living in the Last Days? (Lakeland, FL: John L. Bray Ministry) and Gary DeMar, Last Days Madness: Obsession of the Modern Church, 4th ed. (Powder Springs, GA: American Vision 1999).)) He makes it clear that these latter-day “mockers” were Covenant apostates: familiar with Old Testament history and prophecy, they were Jews who had abandoned the Abrahamic Covenant by rejecting Christ. As Jesus had repeatedly warned (cf. Matt. 12:38–45; 16:1–4; 23:29–39), upon this evil and perverse generation would come the great “Day of Judgment” foretold in the prophets, a “destruction of ungodly men” like that suffered by the wicked of Noah’s day (2 Pet. 3:5–7). Throughout His ministry Jesus drew this analogy (see Matt. 24:37–39 and Luke 17:26–27). Just as God destroyed the “world” of the antediluvian era by the Flood, so would the “world” of first-century Israel be destroyed by fire in the fall of Jerusalem.

St. Peter describes this judgment as the destruction of “the present heavens and earth” (2 Pet. 3:7), making way for “new heavens and a new earth” (2 Pet. 3:10). Because of what may be called the “collapsing-universe” terminology used in this passage, many have mistakenly assumed that St. Peter is speaking of the final end of the physical heaven and earth, rather than the dissolution of the Old Covenant world order. The great seventeenth-century Puritan theologian John Owen answered this view by referring to the Bible’s very characteristic metaphorical usage of the terms heavens and earth, as in Isaiah’s description of the Mosaic Covenant:

For I am the LORD your God, who stirs up the sea and its waves roar (the LORD of hosts is His name). I have put My words in your mouth and have covered you with the shadow of My hand, to establish the heavens, to found the earth, and to say to Zion, “You are My people” (Isa. 51:15–16).

Owen writes:

The time when the work here mentioned, of planting the heavens, and laying the foundation of the earth, was performed by God, was when he “divided the sea” ([Isa. 51] v.15), and gave the law (v. 16), and said to Zion, “Thou art my people”—that is, when he took the children of Israel out of Egypt, and formed them in the wilderness into a congregation of believers and a civil state. Then he planted the heavens, and laid the foundation of the earth—made the new world; that is, brought forth order, and government, and beauty, from the confusion wherein before they were. This is the planting of the heavens, and laying the foundation of the earth in the world. And hence it is that when mention is made of the destruction of a state and its government, it is in that language that seems to set forth the end of the world.

So Isaiah 34 which is the destruction of the state of Edom. The like is also affirmed of the Roman Empire (Rev. 6:14) which the Jews constantly affirm to be intended by Edom in the prophets. And in our Saviour Christ’s prediction of the destruction of Jerusalem, Matthew 24, he sets it out by expressions of the same importance. It is evident then, that, in the prophetical idiom and manner of speech, by “heavens” and “earth,” the civil and religious state and combination of men in the world, and the men of them, are often understood. So were the heavens and earth that world which was then destroyed by the flood. ((John Owen, “Providential Changes: An Argument for Universal Holiness,” in William H. Goold, ed., The Works of John Owen, 16 vols. (London: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1965–68), 9:134.))

Another Old Testament text, among many that could be mentioned, is Jeremiah 4:23–31, which speaks of the imminent fall of Jerusalem (587 B.C.) in similar language of decreation:

I looked on the earth, and behold, it was formless and void; and to the heavens, and they had no light. . . . For thus says the LORD, the whole land shall be a desolation [referring to the curse of Lev. 26:31–33; see its fulfillment in Matt. 24:15!], yet I will not execute a complete destruction. For this the earth shall mourn, and the heavens above be dark. . . .

From the very beginning, God’s covenant with Israel had been expressed in terms of a new creation: Moses described Israel’s salvation in the wilderness in terms of the Spirit of God hovering over a waste, just as in the original creation of heaven and earth (Deut. 32:10–11; cf. Gen. 1:2). ((See Chilton, Paradise Restored, 59.)) In the Exodus, as at the original creation, God divided light and darkness (Ex. 14:20), divided the waters from the waters to bring forth the dry land (Ex. 14:21–22), and planted His people in His holy mountain (Ex. 15:17). God’s miraculous formation of Israel was thus an image of Creation, a redemptive recapitulation of the making of heaven and earth. The Old Covenant order, in which the entire world was organized around the central sanctuary of the Jerusalem Temple, could quite appropriately be described, before its final dissolution, as “the present heavens and earth.”

The 19th-century expositor John Brown wrote:

“A person at all familiar with the phraseology of the Old Testament scriptures knows that the dissolution of the Mosaic economy, and the establishment of the Christian, is often spoken of as the removing of the old earth and heavens, and the creation of a new earth and heavens. . . . The period of the close of the one dispensation, and the commencement of the other, is spoken of as `the last days’ and `the end of the world’; and is described as such a shaking of the earth and heavens, as should lead to the removal of the things which were shaken (Hag. 2:6; Heb. 12:26–27).” ((John Brown, Discourses and Sayings of Our Lord, 3 vols. (Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, [1852] 1990), 1:171f.))

Therefore, says Owen,

“On this foundation I affirm that the heavens and earth here intended in this prophecy of Peter, the coming of the Lord, the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men, mentioned in the destruction of that heaven and earth, do all of them relate, not to the last and final judgment of the world, but to that utter desolation and destruction that was to be made of the Judaical church and state”—i.e., the Fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70. ((Owen, “Providential Changes: An Argument for Universal Holiness,” 9:134.))

This interpretation is confirmed by St. Peter’s further information: In this imminent “Day of the Lord” which was about to come upon the first-century world “like a thief” (cf. Matt. 24:42–43; 1 Thess. 5:2; Rev. 3:3), “the elements will be destroyed with intense heat” (2 Peter 3:10; cf. v. 12). What are these elements? So-called “literalists” lightly and carelessly assume that the apostle is speaking about physics, using the term to mean atoms (or perhaps subatomic particles), the actual physical components of the universe. What these “literalists” fail to recognize is that although the word elements (stoicheia) is used several times in the New Testament, it is never used in connection with the physical universe! (In this respect, the very misleading comments of the New Geneva Study Bible on this passage violate its own interpretive dictum that “Scripture interprets Scripture.”

For possible meanings of this term, it cites pagan Greek philosophers and astrologers—but never the Bible’s own use of the term!) Kittel’s Theological Dictionary of New Testament Words observes that while in pagan literature the word is used in a number of different ways (referring to the “four elements” of the physical world, or to the “notes” on a musical scale, or to the “principles” of geometry or logic), the New Testament writers use the term “in a new way, describing the stoicheia as weak and beggarly. In a transferred sense, the stoicheia are the things on which pre-Christian existence rests, especially in pre-Christian religion. These things are impotent; they bring bondage instead of freedom.” ((Gerhard Kittel and Gerhard Friedrich, eds., Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, one-volume edition edited by Geoffrey W. Bromiley (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1985), 1088.))

Throughout the New Testament, the word “elements” (stoicheia) is always used in connection with the Old Covenant order. St. Paul used the term in his stinging rebuke to the Galatian Christians who were tempted to forsake the freedom of the New Covenant for an Old Covenant-style legalism. Describing Old Covenant rituals and ceremonies, he says “we were in bondage under the elements (stoicheia) of this world. . . . How is it that you turn again to the weak and beggarly elements (stoicheia), to which you desire again to be in bondage? You observe days and months and seasons and years. . . .” (Gal. 4:3, 9–10).

He warns the Colossians: “Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the basic principles (stoicheia) of the world, and not according to Christ. . . . Therefore, if you died with Christ to the basic principles (stoicheia) of the world, why, as though living in the world, do you subject yourselves to regulations—‘Do not touch, do not taste, do not handle’” (Col. 2:8, 20–21). The writer to the Hebrews chided them: “For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elements (stoicheia) of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food” (Heb. 5:12).

In context, the writer to the Hebrews is clearly speaking of Old Covenant [elements that the book of Hebrews argues have passed away]—particularly since he connects it with the term oracles of God, an expression used elsewhere in the New Testament for the provisional, Old Covenant revelation (see Acts 7:38; Rom. 3:2). These citations from Galatians, Colossians, and Hebrews comprise all the other occurrences in the New Testament of that word “elements” (stoicheia). Not one refers to the “elements” of the physical world or universe; all are speaking of the “elements” of the Old Covenant system, which, as the apostles wrote just before the approaching destruction of the Old Covenant Temple in A. D. 70, was “becoming obsolete and growing old” and “ready to vanish away” (Heb. 8:13). And St. Peter uses the same term in exactly the same way. Throughout the Greek New Testament, the word “elements” (stoicheia) always means [covenantal elements], not [physical elements]; the foundational “elements” of a religious system that was doomed to pass away in a fiery judgment [Matt. 22:7].

In fact, St. Peter was quite specific about the fact that he was not referring to an event thousands of years in their future, but to something that was already taking place:

But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements (stoicheia) will melt with fervent heat; both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up. Therefore, since all these things are being dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be dissolved, being on fire, and the elements (stoicheia) are being melted with fervent heat? (2 Pet. 3:10–12)

Contrary to the misleading renderings of translators blinded by their presuppositions, St. Peter insists that the dissolution of “the present heaven and earth”—the Old Covenant system with its obligatory rituals and bloody sacrifices—was already beginning to occur: the “universe” of the Old Covenant was coming apart, never to be revived:

When did prophet and vision cease from Israel? Was it not when Christ came, the Holy one of holies? It is, in fact, a sign and notable proof of the coming of the Word that Jerusalem no longer stands, neither is prophet raised up, nor vision revealed among them. And it is natural that it should be so, for when He that was signified had come, what need was there any longer of any to signify Him? And when the Truth had come, what further need was there of the shadow? . . . And the kingdom of Jerusalem ceased at the same time, kings were to be anointed among them only until the Holy of holies had been anointed. ((St. Athanasius, On the Incarnation of the Word of God (New York: Macmillan, 1946), [40] 61f.))

St. Peter’s message, John Owen argues, is that “the heavens and earth that God himself planted—the sun, moon, and stars of the judaical polity and church—the whole old world of worship and worshippers, that stand out in their obstinacy against the Lord Christ—shall be sensibly dissolved and destroyed.” ((Owen, “Providential Changes: An Argument for Universal Holiness,” 9:135.))

+As we have seen, Puritan theologian John Owen, the author of the seven-volume commentary on the book of Hebrews, argued that the teaching of 2 Peter 3 about the coming “Day of the Lord” was not about the end of the physical universe, but of the Old Covenant and the nation of Israel. He points out that the phrase “heavens and earth” is often used in the Old Testament as a symbolic expression for God’s covenantal creation, Israel (see Isa. 51:15–20; Jer. 4:23–31). Owen writes:

“the heavens and earth that God himself planted—the sun, moon, and stars of the judaical polity and church—the whole old world of worship and worshippers, that stand out in their obstinacy against the Lord Christ—shall be sensibly dissolved and destroyed.” ((Owen, “Providential Changes: An Argument for Universal Holiness,” 9:135.))

Owen offers two further reasons (“of many that might be insisted on from the text,” he says) for adopting the A.D. 70 fulfillment of 2 Peter 3. First, he observes, “whatever is here mentioned was to have its particular influence on the men of that generation.” ((Owen, “Providential Changes: An Argument for Universal Holiness,” 9:134.)) That is a crucial point, which must be clearly recognized in any honest assessment of the apostle’s meaning. St. Peter is especially concerned that his first-century readers remember the apostolic warnings about “the last days” (vv. 2–3; cf. 1 Tim. 4:1–6; 2 Tim. 3:1–9). During these times, the Jewish scoffers of his day, clearly familiar with the Biblical prophecies of judgment, were refusing to heed those warnings (vv. 3–5). He exhorts his readers to live holy lives in the light of this imminent judgment (vv. 11, 14); and it is these early Christians who are repeatedly mentioned as actively “looking for and hastening” the judgment (vv. 12, 13, 14). It is precisely the nearness of the approaching conflagration that St. Peter cites as a motive to diligence in godly living!

An obvious objection to such an exposition is to refer to what is probably the most well-known, most-misunderstood text in St. Peter’s brief epistle: “But, beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day” (2 Pet. 3:8). This means, it is said, that “God’s arithmetic is different from ours,” so that when Scripture uses terms like “near” and “shortly” (e.g., Rev. 1:1, 3) or “at hand” (e.g., James 5:5–7), it doesn’t intend to give the impression of soon-approaching events, but of events possibly thousands of years in the future! Milton Terry refuted this seemingly plausible but spurious theory:

The language is a poetical citation from Psalm 90:4, and is adduced to show that the lapse of time does not invalidate the promises of God. . . . But this is very different from saying that when the everlasting God promises something shortly, and declares that it is close at hand, He may mean that it is a thousand years in the future. Whatever He has promised indefinitely He may take a thousand years or more to fulfill; but what He affirms to be at the door let no man declare to be far away. ((Milton S. Terry, Biblical Hermeneutics: A Treatise on the Interpretation of the Old and New Testaments (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1974), 406.))

J. Stuart Russell wrote with biting disdain:

Few passages have suffered more from misconstruction than this, which has been made to speak a language inconsistent with its obvious intention, and even incompatible with a strict regard to veracity.

There is probably an allusion here to the words of the Psalmist, in which he contrasts the brevity of human life with the eternity of the divine existence. . . . But surely it would be the height of absurdity to regard this sublime poetic image as a calculus for the divine measurement of time, or as giving us a warrant for wholly disregarding definitions of time in the predictions and promises of God.

Yet it is not unusual to quote these words as an argument or excuse for the total disregard for the element of time in the prophetic writings. Even in cases where a certain time is specified in the prediction, or where such limitations as ‘shortly,’ or ‘speedily,’ or ‘at hand’ are expressed, the passage before us is appealed to in justification of an arbitrary treatment of such notes of time, so that soon may mean late, and near may mean distant, and short may mean long, and vice versa. . . .

It is surely unnecessary to repudiate in the strongest manner such a non-natural method of interpreting the language of Scripture. It is worse than ungrammatical and unreasonable, it is immoral. It is to suggest that God has two weights and measures in His dealings with men, and that in His mode of reckoning there is an ambiguity and variableness which will make it impossible to tell ‘What manner of time the Spirit of Christ in the prophets may signify’[cf. 1 Pet. 1:11]…

The Scriptures themselves, however, give no countenance to such a method of interpretation. Faithfulness is one of the attributes most frequently ascribed to the ‘covenant-keeping God,’ and the divine faithfulness is that which the apostle in this very passage affirms. . . .

The apostle does not say that when the Lord promises a thing for today He may not fulfill His promise for a thousand years: that would be slackness; that would be a breach of promise.

He does not say that because God is infinite and everlasting, therefore He reckons with a different arithmetic from ours, or speaks to us in a double sense, or uses two different weights and measures in His dealings with mankind. The very reverse is the truth. . . .

It is evident that the object of the apostle in this passage is to give his readers the strongest assurance that the impending catastrophe of the last days were on the very eve of fulfillment. The veracity and faithfulness of God were the guarantees of the punctual performance of the promise. To have intimated that time was a variable quantity in the promise of God would have been to stultify and neutralize his own teaching, which was that ‘the Lord is not slack concerning His promise.’ ((J. Stuart Russell, The Parousia (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, [1887] 1983), 321ff. Owen, “Providential Changes: An Argument for Universal Holiness,” 134–35.))

Continuing his analysis, John Owen cites 2 Peter 3:13: “But according to His promise we are looking for new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells.” Owen asks: “What is that promise? Where may we find it?” Good question. Do you know the answer? Where in the Old Testament does God promise a New Heaven and Earth? Incidentally, this raises a wider, fascinating issue: When the New Testament quotes or cites an Old Testament text, it’s often a good idea to hunt down the original citation, see what it meant in its original context, and then see the “spin” the New Testament writer places on it. (For example, Isaiah’s prophecy of a gigantic highway-construction project [Isa. 40:3–5] is not interpreted literally in the New Testament, but metaphorically, of the preaching ministry of John the Baptist [Luke 3:4–6]. And Isaiah’s prophecy of a “golden age” when the wolf dwells peaceably with the lamb [Isa. 11:1–10] is condensed and cited by St. Paul as a present fulfillment, in the New Covenant age [Rom. 15:12])! But John Owen, this Puritan scholar, knows his Bible better than most of the rest of us, and he tells us exactly where the Old Testament foretells a “new heaven and earth”:

What is that promise? Where may we find it? Why, we have it in the very words and letter, Isaiah 65:17. Now, when shall this be that God will create these “new heavens and new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness”? Saith Peter, It shall be after the coming of the Lord, after that judgment and destruction of ungodly men, who obey not the gospel, that I foretell. But now it is evident, from this place of Isaiah, with chapter 66:21–22, that this is a prophecy of gospel times only; and that the planting of these new heavens is nothing but the creation of gospel ordinances, to endure forever. The same thing is so expressed in Hebrews 12:26–28. ((Owen, “Providential Changes: An Argument for Universal Holiness,” 9:134f.))

Owen is right on target, asking the question that so many expositors fail to ask: Where had God promised to bring “new heavens and a new earth”? The answer, as Owen correctly states, is only in Isaiah 65 and 66—passages which clearly prophesy the period of the Gospel, brought in by the work of Christ. According to Isaiah himself, this “New Creation” cannot possibly be the eternal state, since it contains birth and death, building and planting (Isa. 65:20–23). The “new heavens and earth” promised to the Church comprise the age of the New Covenant—the Gospel’s triumph, when all mankind will come to bow down before the Lord (Isa. 66:22–23).

John Bray writes:

“This passage is a grand description of the gospel age after Christ came in judgment in 70 A.D. and took away the old heavens and the old earth. We now have the new heavens and the new earth of the gospel age.” ((John L. Bray, Heaven and Earth Shall Pass Away (Lakeland, FL: John L. Bray Ministry), 26.))

St. Peter’s encouragement to the Church of his day was to be patient, to wait for God’s judgment to destroy those who were persecuting the faith and impeding its progress. “The end of all things is at hand,” he had written earlier (1 Pet. 4:7). John Brown commented:

“The end of all things” here is the entire end of the Jewish economy in the destruction of the temple and city of Jerusalem, and the dispersal of the holy people. That was at hand; for this epistle seems to have been written a very short while before these events took place. . . . It is quite plain that in our Lord’s predictions, the expressions “the end” and probably “the end of the world” are used in reference to the entire dissolution of the Jewish economy (cf. Matt. 24:3, 6, 14, 34; Rom. 13:11–12; James 5:8–9). ((Quoted in Roderick Campbell, Israel and the New Covenant (Philadelphia, PA: Presbyterian and Reformed, [1954] 2010), 107.))

Once the Lord came to destroy the scaffolding of the Old Covenant structure, the New Covenant Temple would be left in its place, and the victorious march of the Church would be unstoppable. According to God’s predestined design, the world will be converted; the earth’s treasures will be brought into the City of God, as the Paradise Mandate (Gen. 1:27–28; Matt. 28:18–20) is consummated (Rev. 21:1–27).

This is why the apostles constantly affirmed that the age of consummation had already been implemented by the resurrection and ascension of Christ, who poured out the Holy Spirit. St. Paul, writing of the redeemed individual, says that “if any man is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new” (2 Cor. 5:17). St. John, recording his vision of the redeemed culture, says the same thing: “And I saw a new heaven and a new earth. . . . The first things have passed away. . . . Behold, I am making all things new” (Rev. 21:1–5). The writer to the Hebrews comforts his first-century readers with the assurance that they have already arrived at “the City of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem” (Heb. 12:22; cf. Gal. 26–28; Rev. 21). Even as the old “heaven and earth” were being shaken to rubble, the early Christians were “receiving a Kingdom which cannot be shaken,” the eternal Kingdom of God brought in by His Son (Heb. 12:26–28). Milton Terry has written:

The language of 2 Pet. 3:10–12 is taken mainly from Isa. 34:4, and is limited to the parousia, like the language of Matt. 24:29. Then the Lord made “not only the land but also the heaven” to tremble (Heb. 12:26), and removed the things that were shaken in order to establish a kingdom which cannot be moved. ((Terry, Biblical Hermeneutics, 489.))

It is crucial to note that the apostle continually points his readers’ attention, not to events that were to take place thousands of years in the future, but to events that were already beginning to take place. Otherwise, his closing words make no sense at all: “Therefore, beloved, looking forward to these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, without spot and blameless. . . . You, therefore, beloved, since you know these things beforehand, beware lest you fall from your own steadfastness. . .” (2 Pet. 3:14–17). If these things refer to a 21st-century thermonuclear holocaust, why would the inspired apostle direct such a serious exhortation against “falling from steadfastness” to thousands of readers who would never live to see the things he foretold? A cardinal rule of Biblical interpretation is that Scripture must interpret Scripture; and, particularly, that the New Testament is God’s own inspired commentary on the meaning of the Old Testament.

Once the old had been swept away, St. Peter declared, the Age of Christ would be fully established, an era “in which righteousness dwells” (2 Pet. 3:13). The distinguishing characteristic of the new era, in stark contrast to what preceded it, would be righteousness—increasing righteousness, as the Gospel would be set free in its mission to the nations. There have been many battles throughout Church history, of course, and many battles lie ahead. But these must not blind us to the very real progress that the Gospel has made and continues to make in the world. The New World Order of the Lord Jesus Christ has arrived; and, according to God’s promise, the saving knowledge of Him will fill the earth, as the waters cover the sea (Isa. 11:9).

About Gary DeMar:
Gary—who served as President of American Vision for thirty-five years—is a graduate of Western Michigan University (1973) and earned his M.Div. at Reformed Theological Seminary in 1979. Author of countless essays, news articles, and more than 35 book titles, he has been featured by nearly every major news media outlet. Gary also has hosted The Gary DeMar Show, History Unwrapped, and the Gary DeMar’s Vantage Point Webshow and is a regular contributor to AmericanVision.org. Gary has lived in the Atlanta area since 1979 with his wife, Carol. They have two married sons and are enjoying being grandparents. Gary and Carol are members of Midway Presbyterian Church (PCA).

ABOUT David Chilton:
David was an American pastor, Reconstructionist, speaker and author of several books on economics, eschatology and Christian Worldview from Placerville, California. He contributed three books on eschatology: Paradise Restored (1985), The Days of Vengeance (1987), and The Great Tribulation (1987). His book Productive Christians in an Age of Guilt-Manipulators: A Biblical Response to Ronald J. Sider (1981) was a response to Ronald J. Sider’s best-selling book, Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger: A Biblical Study (1977), which promoted various programs of wealth redistribution by the government. Chilton argued that the Bible either does not authorize such programs or explicitly teaches against them.

Gary DeMar wrote a companion article he titled, “John Lightfoot on the New Heavens and Earth” which can be found HERE.

So let me get this straight. Daniel was told to seal up his vision because fulfillment would not come for “many days in the future” (approx. 600 years) and John was told not seal up his vision because the prophecies contained therein “must shortly take place” (approx. 2,000 years?). If we think a world full of skeptics and critics will buy this logic, then I think we are unwittingly delusional.

I realize this creates a conundrum for many Christians who buy what today’s prophecy gurus are selling, but this is something that must be wrestled with lest we continue to wallow in the sea of intellectual dishonesty. There is a viable answer to this apparent dilemma but it will require nothing short of a paradigm shift to grasp it. There is good reason why all of the prophecy experts have been wrong and continue to be wrong.

To be clear, the Bible isn’t errant.