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The UK Bible Students Website Christian Biblical Studies |
THE PROMISE OF
HIS COMING
A brief study on 2 Peter 3: 5-9, 13
All citations are to the
NIV-UK (1984)
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Positioning himself at the end of the ages, the Apostle Peter writes in vs. 5, 6 of those in the ‘last days’ who scoff at the prophecies and who ask, in facetious tones, ‘Where is this “coming” he promised?’
For, they say, ‘everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.’
Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity suggests that human perception of Time varies, depending on where the observer is located in the Universe.
Jehovah has no such limitations.
If we judge God’s action (or inaction) by our own sense of the passage of time, we will miss the point of the prophecies. He is never tardy in carrying out His intentions, regardless of how we may see things down here.
The Apostle continues in v. 7, ‘By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly’ that is, the component parts of present society (religious and secular) are destined for a great time of trouble and upheaval, which will fall hardest on the unrighteous and those who resist God’s benign intervention.
In v. 8 Peter puts Time itself into perspective with his declaration that from Jehovah’s standpoint, ‘a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years is like a day’.
Vs. 9, 13 explain both the reasons for the delay and the gracious end in view: ‘The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance’.
Mankind’s
history is short and our own private perspective is fashioned in the context of
a small and dying life. God is Eternal. To Him the past and the future are an
open book, in which He inscribes His plans with an eye to the salvation of the
world in the one-thousand-year-kingdom of Christ on earth, then ‘a home of
righteousness’.
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July 2017