“What Kind of People?” – 2 PETER 3:8-13

I wonder if Peter was thinking back on that day in Caesarea Philippi when he penned these verses?

The call to self-denial was a prelude to judgment (Mark 8:38). Being ashamed of Jesus and His words will cause the greatest shame of all … rejection in eternity. Apparently Peter had been faithfully preaching the coming judgment and some were beginning to wonder when it would be (2 Peter 3:3-4). After all, it had been years and the longer it is the less “pressing” it becomes. Further delay in the Second Coming is simply fuel for procrastination in bringing order to our spiritual house.

Time was created by God for people and He exists outside of time and unbound by its restraints (3:8). Just as the cross is our fault (because of sin), the delay in the Second Coming is our fault (because of God’s patient love) and His desire for all to change (3:9). Doesn’t that cast a completely different light on Judgment Day – the final “day of the Lord” (3:10a)? God is not coiled in heaven waiting to pounce on the helpless people He created so He can cast them into hell! His love for mankind is boundless (consider, again, the cross), but the remainder of His creation will not matter. Except for the souls of people, the very elements of everything else He created will be “dissolved” in fire (3:10, 12b).

Yet, He waits to save those who change.

Peter reminds us of the looming day of the Lord to ask a most pertinent question: “What kind of people must we be because of the coming judgment?” (3:11a).

The answer is contained within his pointedly rhetorical question.

You know the answer … holy and godly (3:11b).

Holiness is a life separated from this world. The church (literally, “called out ones”) is separated (“sanctified”) by Christ (John 17:17) as conveyed in His doctrine. Godliness is a life focused on spiritual things of God and not upon the temporal things of people. The church is called out unto godliness with contentment (1 Timothy 6:6) as we persevere until He comes. The alternative is a return to the world that is one day closer to destruction, and a life devoted to the hopelessness of things that offer nothing but hopelessness.

Many theologians and scholars have wasted much time, ink and paper trying to discern the “new heavens and new earth” Peter discusses (3:13). This term is used prophetically in the Old Testament and New testament to describe the transition from one “state” to another.  The simple fact is we do not know what things will be like after the day of the Lord and will not know until time has ended at Jesus’ Second Coming (1 Corinthians 15:50-53 and 1 John 3:1-3). Righteousness will dwell (3:13b) because God is there (1 Corinthians 15:23-28). Peter’s point is to encourage us to take the righteousness of Christ upon us in this life so we can bask in the glow of His righteousness and love in eternal life. We are to “eagerly anticipate” (3:12a) the coming day by the way we live.

What kind of people are we?